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Butter mushrooms are included in the recipes of many dishes of cuisine. They are widespread and loved by mushroom pickers, but quite often among the collected specimens there are worms. There is nothing terrible in this, especially if the lesion is small. You can eat wormy boletus, but before cooking them, you need to carry out some preparatory activities.
Why do worms appear in butter
Strictly speaking, not worms settle inside the fungus, but larvae of various flying insects. They emerge from eggs that are laid in the fruiting bodies of female mosquitoes and flies. Growing larvae begin to feed on the pulp of the fungus, gradually gnawing passages in it, clearly visible on the cut. In this case, the larvae can spread both from above and below, gradually moving from the cap to the stem or vice versa, since some of the insects lay their eggs in the soil. This process occurs not only with oils. Almost all mushrooms that are edible or conditionally edible, to one degree or another, may turn out to be wormy, that is, infected with the larvae of certain insects.
Growing in open areas, butterflies are a highly visible and therefore very accessible food base, so these mushrooms are perhaps the most at risk of becoming a food source for insect larvae. The situation is exacerbated if the weather is dry and hot. Mushrooms at such a time grow worse, and on the contrary, there are much more insects. At such a time, the vast majority of oil, even the youngest, can be wormy. In wet weather, on the contrary, more mushrooms grow, and insects practically do not fly, so wormy butterflies are much less common during such periods.
In addition to the larvae of flying insects, butterflies can be affected by slugs – invertebrate gastropod molluscs that resemble snails without a shell. This usually happens in wet weather. Slugs also feed on the pulp of mushrooms, often gnawing through the caps, but they do not climb deep into the fruiting body and are always outside. These invertebrates do not pose any danger. Simply shake them off, after which the mushrooms can be processed.
Sometimes in the butterflies you can also meet the wireworm well-known to many gardeners – the larva of the click beetle. It is yellowish in color, hard to the touch, differs in rather large sizes, its passages inside the fruiting body of the fungus are a real tunnel. The wireworm usually lives in the soil, feeding on various roots, but often attacks fungi. This larva is not poisonous, and after its removal, forest gifts can be safely used for further processing.
Is it possible to eat wormy butterflies
Butter mushrooms belong to edible mushrooms of the II category of nutritional value. This suggests that they taste good and are a pretty good source of protein.
With the appearance of an insect larva inside the fruiting body, the mushroom will not cease to be edible, it only loses its nutritional value. The larvae themselves and their metabolic products are not poisonous and do not have any negative effect on the taste or smell of oil. Everyone happened to accidentally swallow a mosquito or midge in childhood, and this did not lead to any negative consequences. Absolutely the same situation here. Therefore, it is rather a matter of aesthetics and the expediency of eating worm mushrooms in the presence of healthy ones.
When deciding for yourself whether or not to take wormy oils, you need to decide in advance what they will be used for. Butterfish are perfectly preserved, they can be salted and marinated. However, for this purpose, it is still better to choose whole caps of young mushrooms that are not affected by worms, since they should look as attractive as possible when finished. It is better to use worm butter in dishes that require additional grinding of mushrooms and their good heat treatment. In this case, all negative consequences will be minimized, it will be difficult to identify a randomly remaining worm in a homogeneous mass of the finished dish. And deep heat treatment is guaranteed to destroy all biological traces of its stay inside the fruiting body of the fungus.
How to remove worms from butter mushrooms
Butterflies very often grow in large colonies, dozens of specimens can be in one place. In such cases, the best way to avoid the problem of worms is not to take everything. With a sufficient amount of oil, sorting and culling can be done right on the spot, in the forest. In this case, it is advisable to check each copy by cutting its hat in two. If a lot of worm moves are found during the cut, and the very structure of the pulp of the fruiting body is more like old cotton wool, then there is no point in taking such a mushroom home for processing. Such rotten things are best left immediately in the forest.
At home, before putting mushrooms into processing, you need to check them again for the presence of wormy places. Small local lesions can simply be cut out with a knife. If several worm moves are visible on the cut of the cap, and the structure of the cap itself has not lost its density, then such mushrooms can be soaked for several hours in cold salty water. Worms will definitely leave their shelters and float to the surface, after which it will not be difficult to collect them. Mushrooms after such a procedure can be put into processing.
The brown film covering the butter dish must be removed for any method of using mushrooms, otherwise it will give the finished dish a dark color and a bitter taste. Remove it before soaking the mushroom in water. A wet oiler is very slippery, and it will be very difficult to hold it in your hands. To clean the oil, it is better to wear rubber gloves on your hands, since the film that is removed from the surface of the hat contains a coloring pigment. Hand protection will turn dark brown if not used. This paint is quite resistant and is not washed off for several days.
What to do with wormy oils
After sorting and removing the worms, the butternuts can be used for all the same purposes as ordinary ones. There are quite a few recipes for preparing various dishes with these mushrooms. Here are some names of dishes that can be prepared from them.
- Zrazy with egg and mushrooms.
- Butterfish fried in sour cream.
- Baked potatoes with mushrooms.
- Mushroom soup.
- Butter stewed with potatoes.
- Butterfish fried with onions.
- Butter with chicken.
These mushrooms are good as an independent dish, they are often stewed or fried with potatoes in various variations, used as a filling for pies. From them you can cook numerous mushroom snacks, sauce, mushroom caviar. You can also use boletus to make mushroom soup. However, in this case, it is better to strain the broth, since a worm that accidentally pops up in a plate can discourage appetite for a long time.
After removing the worms, the oil can be dried on a wire rack or in the oven. In dried form, these mushrooms can be stored for up to one and a half years. Boiled butternuts are often frozen and stored as a semi-finished product, using them later for frying, stewing or making mushroom soup.
Video about some methods of cooking butter:
Conclusion
You can eat wormy boletus, but this must be done after their deep processing, which necessarily includes heat treatment. This is absolutely necessary in order to minimize the risk of introducing a parasite or pathogen into the body. If a lot of mushrooms grow, and you can completely do without collecting worms, then this should definitely be used. No need to be greedy and strive to gain as much as possible. Why drag extra cargo if half will still have to be thrown away at home during processing.