Home cooks consider mushroom dishes to be very useful and necessary. Of the many varieties of mushrooms, they have given pride of place to oyster mushrooms for their versatility. Oyster mushrooms, subject to any kind of processing, fit perfectly into the diet. Preference is given to young ones, because the old ones are tougher and less tasty. From oyster mushrooms you can cook different dishes:
- stewed;
- fried;
- boiled;
- baked;
- fermented, salted and pickled.
Oyster mushrooms are amazing in salads, toppings and first courses.
To prepare mushrooms for the winter, housewives choose the freezing method. This is the fastest and easiest way, but it has its own subtleties. How to freeze oyster mushrooms to maximize their nutritional value?
Preliminary preparation – useful tips
The recipe for the freezing process itself is simple and straightforward. But the choice of raw mushrooms requires care. What criteria must be met in order for the freezing to be successful? First of all, you need to pay attention to the appearance:
- Freshness. Any signs of spoilage, rot or mold should be a reason not to freeze such specimens.
- Integrity. Severe damage, faults with blackness are also rejection criteria.
- Smell. A specific aroma or small cracks along the edges of the caps indicate that the product is not the first freshness.
- Leg length. This part is not useful, so a quality mushroom has a short stem.
- Age. An overgrown product is difficult to visually determine. For accuracy, a piece of the cap is broken off from oyster mushrooms and look at the fracture line. It should be white, juicy and soft.
For freezing, we select only fresh, elastic, intact and dense mushrooms.
If you need to wait with freezing, then you need to store them in a cold place. Washing or cutting the product before freezing is not recommended.
Freezing process at home
Mushrooms are frozen at home in two types – boiled and raw. Fresh fruits retain more nutrients than those subjected to heat treatment. Therefore, freezing raw mushrooms for the winter is preferable for many housewives.
How to freeze fresh oyster mushrooms:
- We carry out a thorough inspection of purchased mushrooms. How to do it right? It is necessary to ruthlessly remove spoiled, rotten or damaged specimens from the total mass. Do not cut off the rotten part, hoping that freezing will save the mushrooms from rotting. After defrosting, such fruits will not have a very pleasant taste.
- Selected specimens are cleaned under running water. Do it quickly, because the mushrooms are quickly saturated with moisture. You can’t soak them either. In the freezer, the water will turn into ice and break the whole structure of the fungus.
- Now the total amount is divided into portions and placed in a container for freezing. Plastic containers and even cling film will do. This technique allows you not to defrost the entire amount at once, but to take in portions.
You can freeze mushrooms with preliminary heat treatment. To do this, the product is washed, cleaned of dirt and put in boiling water. Boil 15 minutes. Water is salted 5 minutes after the oyster mushrooms boil. Then the product is laid out on a board and the excess liquid is allowed to drain. Further, oyster mushrooms are divided into portions and sent to the freezer.
Is it possible to freeze already cooked mushrooms? A fully cooked product will lose some of its nutritional properties after defrosting, but alternative methods exist:
- Dried. Cut the washed mushrooms and dry in the oven. After cooling, send in portions to the freezer. Defrost slowly!
- In the broth. Put the package tightly into the container. Put boiled mushrooms in it and pour in the broth. Freeze in the refrigerator, then tightly tie the bag when frozen.
- Fried. Fry oyster mushrooms in butter or vegetable oil, and place in the freezer. This type is used in the first place. Fried oyster mushrooms do not store for a long time!
Why oyster mushrooms can be bitter after defrosting? This happens sometimes. Most likely, they were stored for a long time. Frozen mushrooms should be used within 3-4 months. The bitterness is removed by abundant washing and the addition of spices during cooking.
Properly frozen oyster mushrooms will help out the hostess more than once in the winter months, so please yourself with a useful preparation.