Recipe for morel mushrooms. Exquisite morel dishes for true connoisseurs

For avid mushroom pickers, the quiet hunting season usually begins with morels. Indeed, these mushrooms begin to appear as early as April. They are quite easy to identify due to the structure of the cap. Morels are considered relatively safe - all types can be eaten.

Morels have a fairly characteristic and recognizable cap shape. It is porous in mushrooms, similar to a honeycomb, from yellowish to black. The shape of the cap can be similar to an egg or an elongated oval. Sometimes these mushrooms are confused with stitches. In fact, there is a difference between them. The head of the lines is covered with many convolutions. Morels can grow up to 15 cm.

Morel mushrooms: preparation

In our country, morels are considered conditionally edible. In some other countries they are considered poisonous. There is nothing surprising. In fact, the explanation is banal - mushrooms must be subjected to thorough heat treatment. The danger is that morels are often confused with strings, which need to be cooked for a long time and pre-soaked.

To prepare, first of all, you need to wash the morels and remove damaged areas. Then they are soaked for 1-2 hours. After this, boil in salted water at the rate of 1 to 3 for 25-30 minutes. The broth is drained, the mushrooms are washed and used for frying, stewing and soups. They are also used as a filling for pies. Morels can be dried. This is usually a long process; preparation takes at least 3 months. Dried mushrooms are added to soups and used as a seasoning. To do this, they are simply ground into powder.

Morel mushrooms: recipes

Recipes for preparing morels are surprising in their variety. Most often, mushrooms are fried with onions and stewed with sour cream. In this case, they can be served as a separate dish. By the way, in Europe it is considered a delicacy.

Compound:

Morels - 500 gr.
Sour cream - 1 tbsp.
Flour - 1 tsp.
Cheese - 25 gr.
Vegetable oil - 1 tsp.
Salt, parsley - to taste

Preparation:

Prepare mushrooms for frying: soak for 1 hour, boil for 30 minutes in salted water, drain it, and rinse the morels.
Cut the mushrooms into slices and fry in oil. At the very end, sprinkle with flour and pour in sour cream. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for another 5-7 minutes.
Then place in a mold, sprinkle cheese on top and place in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. Bake until golden brown. When serving, you can sprinkle the mushrooms with parsley.

Compound:

Broth - 1 l.
Morels - 250 gr.
Onion - 1 pc.
Potatoes - 2-3 pcs.
Carrots - 1 pc.
Vegetable oil - to taste
Salt and spices - to taste

Preparation:

Prepare morels for cooking. Soak in water for 1-2 hours, boil for 30 minutes, rinse, cut.
Place diced potatoes into the heated broth. It should cook for 20 minutes.
During this time, prepare the frying. Grate the carrots, chop the onion. Fry them in oil.
Add morels to the broth with potatoes. 5-7 minutes before readiness, add the roast and bay leaf. Add salt to taste.

Preparation:

Morels collected in dry, sunny weather are suitable for drying. Mushrooms found during rain will rot. First of all, you need to clean the product from dirt. This is difficult to do with morels.
For drying, you need to choose strong mushrooms without damage (no rot or worms). Morels should be cut into slices, placed in a dry room for 2-3 days, then dried in the oven. First 2-3 hours at 40-59 degrees, then at 70 degrees 1-1.5 hours. The oven door must be open. Then the mushrooms are transferred to a paper bag or jar, which is tightly closed. Otherwise they will absorb moisture.
Dried morels can be used only after 3 months. During this time, the toxic substances contained in them are completely destroyed. Dried mushrooms are usually soaked before cooking.

Morel mushrooms: when to collect?

The first morels begin to appear in early spring. They can be seen in the forests already when the snow has melted. Fungal growth increases with warmer weather. There are especially many of them in April and May. The conical morel is one of the varieties of this plant. It can be found in the forest in June. True, this does not always happen, but only in the case of a cold spring.

Morels prefer sunny meadows. There are especially many of them in open places. The type of forest does not matter. They grow in both deciduous and coniferous forests. It happens that mushrooms can be found in city parks.
In the south they grow in front gardens, vegetable gardens and lawns. When looking for morels, you should look into forest ditches and furrows. It is believed that they most often grow under ash trees. In order to collect a lot of morels, you need to understand their varieties. There is nothing complicated about this, because... Only two types are known - the common morel and the conical one.
You will find the first under deciduous trees, the second - in the grass, in coniferous and mixed plantings.

Both species grow in burnt areas, where there has been a forest fire. Mushrooms have another feature. They don't grow in the same place all the time. The mycelium somehow moves from one forest area to another.

The spring morel mushroom has a peculiar appearance. It is unlike many varieties of summer edible mushrooms. For a long time, there was a wary attitude towards morels; it was believed that they were dangerous to eat. This opinion arose due to their similarity to lines, which often cause poisoning. These 2 types of mushrooms are easy to confuse. If you know the differences between them, then with proper processing you can safely eat morels.

Photos and descriptions of this type of spring mushrooms will be given below.

Appearance of morel

Morels - spring mushrooms. They begin to appear at the end of April and grow in groups. In the month of May there are more of them, and in June they already move away, meeting only occasionally.

In central Russia there are 3 types of morels: ordinary, conical and cap morels.

All these species are edible, but require mandatory preliminary boiling.

It is important for the mushroom picker distinguish morels from lines. They are similar, and only by looking closely can you tell them apart. Stitches often cause poisoning due to their high toxin content.

The stitches are darker in color and have an irregularly shaped head with numerous random folds. Outwardly, their winding cap resembles a walnut shell or a human brain. The stitches have a short stem, which sometimes is not even visible from under the cap. The stem and cap are not hollow inside, they are filled with pulp.

Edible morels must also be distinguished from their false counterparts, which can be harmful to health. To do this you need to cut them in half. False morels have a stem that is not hollow, but has pulp inside.

Product benefits

Due to the presence of a substance from the group of polysaccharides (FD 4) morel is good for eyesight. Its use helps strengthen the eye muscles and prevents clouding of the lens. Based on the product, a drug was created that passed clinical trials in an ophthalmology clinic. According to research results, the use of this remedy helped improve vision by more than 2 times in approximately ¼ of the patients. The risk of cataracts was reduced by 80%, and in some patients the cloudiness of the lens decreased. However, such a medicine requires a long course of treatment, about 6 months.

As a folk remedy, the product is used in the treatment of diseases of the immune and circulatory systems, as it has the ability to cleanse the lymph and blood.

The product contains vitamins A, D, C, PP and group B, as well as phosphorus. This is due to the beneficial properties of morels. The calorie content of mushrooms is low - about 30 kilocalories per 100 g of product.

This is a rather expensive product. The price of 1 kg of fresh morels is about 400 rubles, and dried ones - about 5,000 rubles. They are almost impossible to find in regular supermarkets; they are sold in special eco-stores.

Is the product hazardous to health?

When fresh, they contain toxic substances - gyrometrin, methylhydrazine and helwellic acid, which are destroyed when boiled. If the mushrooms are prepared according to all the rules, then there will be no poisoning. For this reason, they are classified as conditionally edible mushrooms.

All cases of poisoning are associated with improper processing of mushrooms. In some cases, they are confused with stitches, which are much more toxic. Stitch poisoning is observed much more often, because the content of toxic substances in them is much higher.

If the morels were poorly boiled, then the following symptoms of poisoning are possible:

headache;
nausea and vomiting;
diarrhea;
stomach ache;
convulsions;
liver damage (in severe cases).

If such signs appear, it is necessary to rinse the stomach, take activated charcoal and call an ambulance.

To avoid such unpleasant consequences, you need comply with processing rules. Before cooking, morels should be thoroughly rinsed in a colander under running water. Then the mushrooms are transferred to a saucepan, filled with water and soaked for 1 hour. After this, they are washed again in a colander. Next, they are boiled in a saucepan for 1 hour. After cooking, place the mushrooms in a colander. The broth must be poured out; it cannot be used for cooking. During heat treatment, toxins remain in the broth. Only after this can you start preparing morel dishes.

It must be remembered that it is better not to let children eat morels. The child's body may be sensitive to these fungi. Yes, and adults need to consume this product in moderation.

How to store mushrooms?

You can store morels dried or frozen. Drying mushrooms takes quite a long time, and they can only be consumed after 90 days. Such prolonged drying destroys toxins in the same way as boiling.

Another way to store morels is to freeze them..

Before freezing, mushrooms must be boiled according to all the rules to remove toxins.
After boiling, dry the mushrooms so that they do not become covered with ice when frozen.
Then the morels are placed on a tray and placed in the freezer for several hours.
After this, the mushrooms are transferred to a container and stored in the freezer.

Frozen mushrooms can be stored for about 1 year. As for fresh morels, they can be store boiled. To do this, they are placed in a salt solution and placed in the refrigerator. But the shelf life of such mushrooms is very short.

Morels can be used to make fried dishes, sauces, and pie fillings. It is not advisable to use them for first courses, since in a liquid medium they lose their taste and smell. You can also prepare traditional medicine from these mushrooms.

Traditional medicine recipes based on morels

These mushrooms are used to improve vision and digestion, to cleanse blood and lymph, as well as for joint pain.

Conclusion

We can conclude about the benefits of morels for the human body. You just need to remember about rules for processing mushrooms and give it due attention. And then the use of the product will be completely safe.

Connoisseurs and connoisseurs of mushrooms have probably already been in the forest and collected the first mushrooms - morels and strings. Fragrant, very tasty dishes made from them will hardly leave indifferent even those who do not particularly like them. And indeed it is. The main secret of success is their proper preparation. Today I’ll tell you how to cook morels and stitches correctly and tasty.

These mushrooms are completely unlike any other. The stitches have an irregularly shaped cap, visually reminiscent of a brain, up to 10 cm in height and 15 cm in width. The cap is initially smooth, but becomes wrinkled over time. Mostly the cap is brown or dark brown, but there are specimens with red, orange, purple caps, and morels have vertical lines on their caps. Look at the photo to see what these mushrooms look like.

How to cook morel and stitch mushrooms

After all, many are sure that these morels are not edible and even poisonous. Yes, this is partly true, because they are considered conditionally edible.

Mushrooms contain helvellic acid, which is the cause of poisoning. Depending on the amount of mushrooms eaten, poisoning can be mild or severe. Therefore, before cooking, you must first boil or dry them. Proceed exactly as when preparing all known chanterelles.

First, carefully rinse the collected mushrooms under running water to remove any remaining soil. Then boil them for 10 minutes from the moment they boil, after which be sure to drain the broth. You can boil it again, although this is not necessary.
Morels and strings can be dried without boiling. When dried, helvella acid loses its toxic properties. You can dry them in electric dryers or on oven racks.

When cooking, be aware that not only unboiled mushrooms are poisonous, but also the decoction. In my practice, there was a case when one family made soup from morels without pouring out the first broth. As a result, all family members (parents and 2 children) were poisoned and then had to be treated in the infectious diseases department. But everything worked out, and it could have been worse.

Morels - recipes

Although morels and stitches look slightly different from each other, the technology for preparing them is exactly the same. What can you cook from morels? Yes, there are a lot of things: this is a soup, and you can stew them, make a sauce or filling for pies. I don’t write the amount of mushrooms in the recipe description: it’s not always possible to find a certain amount, depending on your luck. But even by collecting just a few mushrooms, you can prepare a tasty and aromatic dish.

I want to say that morels are a low-calorie product, only 22.7 kcal per 100 grams. Of course, the caloric content of the final dish will depend on the caloric content of other components.

I offer you several recipes for making morels and stitches.

Fried morels

Boil the mushrooms, drain the broth, it should not be eaten. Fry the finely chopped onion in oil until translucent, then add the mushrooms and fry everything together over low heat under the lid for 10 minutes.

Fried morels are good served as an independent dish, or as an addition to a side dish.

Boil the sorted and washed in water for 10 minutes, be sure to drain the broth.

Melt the butter in a frying pan; it can be butter, ghee, or vegetable oil. You can even use rendered pork fat, it will also be delicious. Fry the potatoes and onions cut into strips in oil until half cooked. Then add boiled morels or lines with it. Simmer for another 10 minutes under the lid over low heat. The dish is ready!

Morel Julienne

To prepare you will need:
Boiled morels – 200-300 g
1 medium onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp. l. butter
1.5 cups cream
2 tbsp. l. flour
Hard cheese – 100 g
Salt, ground pepper, herbs - to taste.

How to cook:
Fry finely chopped onion and garlic in oil until they become translucent and soft. To prevent the oil from burning, fry over low heat. Then add the prepared mushrooms, add salt and herbs to taste, and then flour. Fry it all for about two minutes, stirring constantly, add cream and leave on the fire for another five minutes.
Transfer the stewed mushrooms into cocotte makers, sprinkle grated cheese on top and place in the oven for baking. After 15-20 minutes, when the cheese has melted and browned, the dish will be ready.

Morel soup with cereals

To prepare the soup you will need:

Water – 2 l,
Mushrooms - as many as you can, but for such a volume of water no more than 8-10 mushrooms,
1 medium onion,
2 small potatoes,
A handful of cereals - millet, pearl barley or rice,
Salt to taste.

Preparation:

Be sure to boil the morels, as I wrote above. I saw recipes for soups on the Internet where mushrooms were not boiled. Believe me, it’s dangerous, it’s better to boil them. Don't be afraid: the aroma and taste will not be lost!

While the mushrooms are boiling, peel the potatoes, onions, and rinse the cereal. Drain the boiled morels into a colander, then chop them finely and add them to a pan of hot water where our soup will be cooked. Bring the mushroom broth to a boil, add the chopped potatoes and washed cereal.

Separately, fry the chopped onion in oil until transparent, then add it to the broth and add salt to the soup. Cook until done.
When serving, add herbs and sour cream to the soup.

Morel casserole

You will need:

15-20 morels or lines,
1 glass of sour cream,
Ghee or butter for frying,
2 tbsp. l. flour,
Salt to taste
Greens for serving.

Preparation:

Sort out the collected mushrooms, rinse them several times in water, and let them boil. After 10 - 15 minutes, drain the water, rinse the mushrooms again with cold water, chop finely, and then fry them in a frying pan with butter. Add salt to taste, add flour, mix thoroughly.

Place the fried mushrooms in ceramic baking dishes or pots, pour sour cream over them and place in the oven for a few minutes until the sour cream is browned. Before serving, sprinkle the casserole with herbs.

When preparing a casserole, you can add boiled potatoes to the mushrooms, it will be a different dish.

Morel mushroom sauce

The sauce can be prepared from both fresh and dry mushrooms. If they are fresh, they are sorted out, washed under running water or 2-3 in a dish with water so that the remaining soil is washed away. If these are dry mushrooms, then they are poured with hot water and left for several hours, after which they are washed several times in water, and then boiled in the same way as fresh ones. Then it is washed again.

Recipe No. 1. The prepared mushrooms are finely chopped and then fried together with onions in olive or sunflower oil.

In another frying pan 1 tbsp. l. fry flour with 1 tbsp. l. butter, constantly stirring and rubbing until smooth, then add 2 cups of any broth (meat, chicken) and stir constantly. When the sauce thickens, add fried morels, 100 g of sour cream, salt and bring to a boil again.

This sauce goes well with potato, fish cutlets, and pasta.

Recipe No. 2. Fry finely chopped onion in vegetable oil until transparent, add prepared and pre-boiled mushrooms, fry for another 5 minutes, then pour a glass of white table wine (alcohol will evaporate during stewing) and 100 ml of cream and leave to simmer until the sauce reduces half and will not thicken. Add salt to taste.

When serving, sprinkle the sauce with herbs.

Dear friends, I hope that you liked these recipes and that you will be happy to choose and cook something for yourself. The versatility of the recipes also lies in the fact that according to these recipes you can prepare not only morels and strings, but any other forest mushrooms - porcini, aspen mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, lice mushrooms, moss mushrooms.

My dear readers! I am very glad that you visited my blog, thank you all! Was this article interesting and useful to you? Please write your opinion in the comments. I would really like you to also share this information with your friends on social media. networks.

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Be healthy! Taisiya Filippova was with you.

Morels are especially popular among residents of the United States and many European countries, but you can also find this invaluable product in our native forests. Why priceless? This is all because of its exotic taste and medicinal properties of such mushrooms. You can reveal all their charms only if you know how to cook morels.

In fact, the technology for preparing the product is quite simple: remove debris, wash under running water, soak, boil, boil twice and drain in a colander. Nothing complicated, right? However, in order to make cooking morels successful the first time, you can use a couple of tips and useful tricks from experienced mushroom pickers.

What types of morels are there?

Many mushroom pickers consider such tender and aromatic spring mushrooms to be the most delicious. Each of them has their own secret places for collecting morels, which they do not tell anyone about. Proper preparation of morels and strings allows you to fully reveal the excellent taste of the product. There are several types of such mushrooms:

The common morel is a mushroom with a porous cap structure, which in its shape resembles a sphere or an egg. A light or dark brown cap rises above a white elastic leg.
The conical morel is another edible mushroom, which differs from ordinary morels only in its oblong shape.
Steppe morel - grows in fields and plantings, and not just near old stumps. It is distinguished by a small round cap of light brown color.

If you want to cook morels and strings deliciously, you need to thoroughly wash and boil them, and then add them to the soup or simply fry them with onions. Spicy lovers may like it, but we suggest you deviate a little from traditional and simple dishes. This product is a real delicacy, so we have prepared for you recipes for exotic holiday dishes made from morels:

Morel casserole with potatoes and cheese

Ingredients:

fresh morels – 1 kg;
potatoes – 7 pcs.;
hard cheese – 0.15 kg;
mayonnaise – 0.1 kg;
sour cream – 0.1 kg.

Cooking process:

First, the morels need to be thoroughly washed, soaked, boiled several times, drained of the broth and dried. If you don't have time to wait for the mushrooms to drain, you can press them a little to speed up the process.
Cut the dried mushrooms into small slices. The legs are usually tougher than the cap, so they can be removed or also cut into oblong pieces.
Potatoes should be peeled, washed thoroughly, and then cut into thin rings. In this case, the thinner the better. It would also be correct if you turn the potatoes into sticks. It all depends on your preferences.
Grease a deep baking pan with sunflower oil to prevent the food from burning. First, cover its bottom with chopped potatoes. Season with salt, spices, sour cream and mayonnaise. Place the prepared mushrooms on top and apply the second part of the mayonnaise and sour cream on them. Grate the Dutch cheese on a fine grater and sprinkle it generously over the dish.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Only after this can the baking sheet be placed in the oven. The morel casserole will be ready in 40 minutes. You can judge the readiness of the dish by the golden cheese crust, but it is better to check the potatoes with a toothpick. Bon appetit!

Salad “Fern inflorescence”

Ingredients:

new potatoes – 3 pcs.;
fern shoots – 8 pcs.;
pickled morels – 0.2 kg;
onion greens – 1 bunch;
olive oil;
pine nuts – 0.05 kg;
pepper and salt to taste.

Cooking process:

This recipe for making morels will certainly not leave you indifferent. Non-standard ingredients not only interestingly complement pickled mushrooms, but also make their taste as pronounced as possible. The first step is to deal with the fern shoots. Finding this ingredient will be difficult, but it will be worth it. Steam the raw fern, and you can simply dry the pickled product and add it to the salad bowl.
Young potatoes do not need to be peeled. Just boil it in salted water until fully cooked. Potatoes should not fall apart, but maintain a dense structure. Before further processing, it must be dried with a paper towel.
Rinse the young onions, dry them and chop them with a sharp knife.
Now you can move on to chopping the potatoes. Turn it into large cubes, which you need to pour into a salad bowl with the fern, add pickled morels, green onions, a few tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper. Before serving, sprinkle the morel salad with pine nuts. Ready! This morel salad recipe will pleasantly surprise your guests and household members.

Stuffed mushrooms

Ingredients:

fresh morels – 0.5 kg;
cream – 0.5 l.;
dill or parsley - 1 bunch;
cottage cheese or cream cheese – 0.2 kg;
nutmeg;
salt and pepper;
chicken meat – 0.2 kg;
butter – 0.1 kg;
prunes – 0.2 kg;
chicken egg – 1 pc.;
carrots – 1 pc.;
onion – 1 pc.

Cooking process:

Recipes for morels can be very different, but all dishes made from them can boast a delicate and refined taste.

Good afternoon friends!

The snow has finally melted, and before the earth has even warmed up, by the end of April the first spring mushrooms - morels and strings - appear in the coniferous and mixed forests. They love warmth and moisture very much. This year, spring was delayed by about two weeks and the timing of the appearance and growth of mushrooms has also shifted, since they are highly dependent on the weather.

Saprophytes grow everywhere: on the edges of the forest, along the roads, as if they are saying: “Here we are, don’t pass by.” It is best to collect them in the morning, at which time they are denser. And it is advisable to put them in a basket, where they will not wrinkle and will better retain freshness.

These mushrooms are mainly consumed fresh after preliminary boiling, but they can also be used for drying. In this article I want to offer you simple recipes for preparing these handsome marsupials with hollow legs at home.

Conditionally edible mushrooms - morels and strings

To please your family with delicious and satisfying mushroom dishes, you need to know the peculiarities of their preparation.

We wash freshly picked morels well under running water. The morel cap, thanks to its uneven surface, reminiscent of a honeycomb, collects sand, slugs, and twigs. We cut the caps and legs in half and wash them thoroughly.

Don't forget that morels and strings contain helvella acid. To get rid of it, boil the cut caps and stems for 8-10 minutes.

Then we pour out the broth, wash the mushrooms and only after that prepare various dishes.

Important! When eating stitches, you must be careful. Even a small amountgyromitrin, which remains in them after boiling, can be oncogenic and cause poisoning in children and people with hypersensitivity.

For more information about these spring forest inhabitants, watch the video:

How to cook morels in sour cream and cheese

I offer you a recipe for a dish called the royal mixture. This is not a holiday dish, but it is very filling and replaces meat. Ivan the Terrible also ate it and praised it. Come on, we'll try it too.

Ingredients:

freshly picked morels
onion - 1 pc.
butter - 2 tbsp. l.
wheat flour - 1 tbsp. l.
sour cream - 150-200 g.
cheese -
green onions
salt, pepper - to taste

Preparation:

1. We sort and wash fresh mushrooms. We cut large caps and stems to the required size, leaving small ones whole.

2. Place in a saucepan, fill with cold water and put on fire. After boiling, cook for 10 minutes.

3. Rinse in cold water and drain in a colander.

4. Peel the onion, cut into small cubes and fry in a frying pan in 1 tablespoon of butter until golden brown.

5. Add mushrooms to the onion and fry for another 7-10 minutes.

4. Sprinkle with flour and fry for 3 minutes. Then add sour cream, stir and bring to a boil.

5. Salt and pepper to taste.

6. If desired, the resulting mass can be placed in cocotte makers, sprinkled with grated cheese and baked in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes until golden brown.

7. Before serving, sprinkle with finely chopped herbs. I don't know a single person who would refuse such a dish. Enjoy your meal!

Recipe for fried mushrooms and potatoes

This dish has gained great popularity for its speed and ease of preparation. The delicacy turns out tasty and satisfying. It is better to eat it hot.

Ingredients:

boiled morels
new potatoes
small onion heads
garlic
olives
vegetable oil for frying
greenery

Preparation:

The number of products is arbitrary, depending on desire. You can put more mushrooms or, on the contrary, potatoes, as you like.

1. Cut the boiled morels into pieces at your discretion.

2. Cut medium-sized young potatoes in half along with the tender skin. Boil it in boiling salted water until half cooked.

3. Fry the onion in vegetable oil. To enhance the taste and aroma, add a crushed clove of garlic.

4. Add the prepared mushrooms, fry everything together for 8-10 minutes.

5. After cooking, place the fried mushrooms and onions in a separate bowl.

In the same frying pan, fry our potatoes in the remaining oil until golden brown.

7. Place on a plate and garnish with chopped herbs before serving. You can add tomato slices, cucumber slices or olives. I assure you, such a dish will not last long on the table.

If lovers of “quiet hunting” have found an interesting recipe for themselves, I will be glad. Share your interesting recipes in the comments, I will be happy to share them on the pages of my blog.

See you soon, there are many more mushrooms ahead of us. After all, the whole summer is ahead!