It's interesting what people will stockpile in a crisis: toilet paper and pasta, yes; mushrooms, no. Completely understandable of course. Mushrooms aren't known for their shelf life. Still, if you get a little creative, more or less anything edible can be preserved and hoarded for much later consumption.
So it is that if you happen upon supermarket at the right time and at the end of the right socially distanced queue, you can nab yourself some interesting bargains, even in these times of scarcity. In Tesco on Sunday, oyster mushrooms normally retailing at a pricey £1.50 a punnet were going for 38p each. I grabbed three. Which is the maximum amount of anything you're allowed to grab at the moment, but try telling that to the man in front of me insisting to the frustrated checkout hero that 12 bottles of beer (in packs of four each) counted as three items. Fascists. Or maybe communists. Who knows anymore?
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So anyway, I thought I'd have a go at drying out my "haul" to add to my now quite expansive collection of things in jars. This was the result:
A success. It was easier than I expected. The trick, I discovered, is to start them off in the oven, sliced and placed onto a sheet of tinfoil, on a low heat (well below 100 C) with the door open for about 10 - 15 minutes. This removes most of the moisture. Then just let them sit on the tinfoil in a sunny spot indoors for about three days. Job done.
It's getting exciting now. Do you know why? Because wild garlic season is almost upon us. See, life isn't all bad. Stay happy!
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I often accidentally dry mushrooms by leaving them in their paper bag in the fridge for too long, instead of in the vegie crisper. Leaving them in a paper bag on the bench will also dry them nicely. Right now it is mushroom season in Tasmania and a neighbour just gifted me a colander full of field mushrooms from his mate's farm. So yes, drying mushrooms is in my immediate future as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of mushrooms grow down in Tasmania? :)
DeleteSO many. I have never hunted for mushrooms in the wild but i can recognise a basic supermarket mushroom when I see it growing in a field, you know, white on top, brown gills. I know what it should and shouldn't smell like and to check for yellow staining. Next year I would like to arm myself with a good field guide and someone who has done it before and sally out for saffron milk caps and slippery jacks.
ReplyDeleteThat's really cool. I was up in the Scottish Highlands last September and it was mushroom season there. Such an abundance of weird and wonderful varieties growing there. Sadly not so many where I am, but I always keep my eyes peeled. Have you tried growing any edible ones yourself?
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