In contrast to some other tasty edible mushrooms such as button mushrooms or oyster mushrooms, porcini mushrooms cannot be grown in the home garden. Instead, the porcini friend has to rely on finding the tasty fruiting bodies in the forest themselves. With a bit of luck - and with the right mushroom weather - you can certainly make rich loot. But what to do with so many fresh porcini mushrooms?
Boiling porcini mushrooms is a variant of preservation
The Best Methods of Preserving
Due to their high water and protein content, fresh mushrooms only last for a very short time: the mushroom protein decomposes quickly, with the result that the meal becomes inedible. Cleaned and freed from maggots or otherwise unsightly spots, porcini mushrooms can be kept in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator for two to three days. Outside of this, you should not store the mushrooms. If the collected goods are to be preserved for a longer period of time, porcini mushrooms can be frozen or dried very well.
Dry porcini mushrooms
Although you can often read these instructions in magazines or online forums, please do not copy them: sliced and air-dried mushrooms quickly go moldy, which in turn can lead to nasty food poisoning. It is better to dry the cleaned and sliced mushrooms either in a dehydrator or in the oven at a maximum of 70 °C circulating air. The oven method involves leaving the oven door ajar (e.g., by sticking a wooden spoon in). If the panes break easily (and no longer bend), they are dry enough.
Freeze porcini mushrooms
Even better, clean fresh porcini mushrooms and cut them into bite-sized pieces and then freeze them raw. They can last up to a year this way provided they have been frozen in a freezer at around minus 18ºC. The freezer compartment of the refrigerator is not cold enough for this purpose, the mushrooms also only last a few days to weeks here.
To be enjoyed with caution: boil down the porcini
Perhaps you remember this process from your grandmother, who - like many others of her generation - simply boiled or preserved mushrooms. Even today, this method is increasingly being used again, which is due to the ongoing trend towards DIY. However, it is important to be particularly careful here: If the jar does not close properly, toxic toxins can form during storage. The mushrooms are then spoiled and may no longer be eaten! So always make sure (even when opening mushrooms that have already been preserved!) that the lid is sealed airtight.
tips
Porcini mushrooms taste best fresh from the forest anyway: Fry the cleaned and sliced mushrooms together with finely diced onions in butter and douse them with a mixture of crème fraîche and sweet cream. The whole thing is seasoned with just salt, pepper and fresh parsley.