The morels are here. One of the few upsides to having had a million acres burn in Montana over the last few years is that morels are now selling at the farmers market for $10 a pound. They taste great, but I want to dry some so I can use them in soups and gravies this coming winter.
I don’t have a food dehydrator, whats the best way to dry and store them?
On a related note, I am going to be trying a recipe that calls for 1.5 cups of sliced carrots and 1 cup of peas. I want to use about 1/2 of those amounts because I really don’t like cooked peas and carrots. Any thoughts on what else I can use a “fill”?
Thanks,
whistlepig
Morels are mushrooms that only grow in the wild and are only available until about mid-june.
I’m not sure if this will for morels, but we used to do this with chantrelles that we picked. Slice them thin and put them on a screen rack and set them someplace out in the sun. Ours generally took about three days, but it did work.
Morels couln’t be simpler to dry in this area. Assuming you or your neighbor happen to have a screen door or two. Remove it and drag it into your garage, den or kitchen, along with some all purpose saw horses.
Spread your booty out and let it dry. Morels don’t need to be sliced or anything special unless you’ve waited too long to harvest and the ants have moved in. In which case you need to soak them first in salt water to float the critters out.
You can’t hurt them by overdrying, so leave them plenty of time.
I store mine in glass gallon jars. (warning, it takes about three paper grocery sacks of fresh Morels to make a gallon dried)
Hard to belive, but I like Morels better after they are dried than I do fresh…and I LOVE 'em fresh!
If yer married, it’s a real good idea to save the screws from the screen door.
In one or other of my ‘wild food’ books, the author recommends cutting them in half, then using a needle to thread the pieces onto thin thread; this should allow you to hang them up somewhere, which will not only protect them from crawling insects such as ants and beetles, but will allow the air to circulate around them more freely.
I wouldn’t dry them in direct sunlight myself, as I think some of the aroma compounds might degrade or evaporate this way.
The only problem with the needle and thread idea with mushrooms is that you don’t want them touching or they can turn to mush pretty quickly. I dry cayenne peppers on a needle and thread just fine but they don’t have the moisture content of 'shrooms.
Tell ya what Mangetout, you hang up your 10.00/lb. Morels on a needle and thread and let me know how they come out. Me, I’m gonna continue risking the wrath of the better half and use my screen door. Don’t be a coward, use the door!
Really, you don’t even want them touching on a screen because they don’t dry as quickly.
I’m not trying to get into an argument here, but stringing them loosely probably means there is more actual exposed surface area than when they are laid flat on mesh.
I think I’m going to try the the stringing the mushrooms, only because we are at 40 degrees so I think they’d take longer to dry on a screen in the garage than on a string in the house.
Of course, anything that can’t be threaded will probably end up on a string or tomorrow nights chicken pot pie.
