Champignons cook faster and easier than all other mushrooms. They are allowed to eat even after minimal heat treatment or even raw. The main thing is to properly prepare the product. The following describes how to clean mushrooms before cooking.

Do I need to clean mushrooms before cooking

Every housewife probably wondered: should I clean mushrooms before cooking? This is actually not a mandatory process. Such mushrooms are allowed to cook without prior cleaning. But you should only do this if the culinary specialist is fully confident that the product was grown in a clean, safe environment..

Today, some housewives grow champignons on their own. Under such conditions, they can safely refuse to pre-clean the mushrooms, but simply wipe them thoroughly with a damp cloth. But the store product is still better to pre-clean. It does not take much time.

What you need to clean mushrooms

You don’t have to buy any special culinary accessories to clean mushrooms. It will be enough to arm yourself with the following items:

  1. With a sharp knife. Professional chefs suggest that a tool with a very thin blade, small size, to fit comfortably in your hand, is best for cleaning champignons. They are especially comfortable with the inside of the hats.
  2. A kitchen sponge or a napkin with a hard side.
  3. A deep and wide bowl in which all used mushrooms will fit.

If it is planned to divide the mushrooms into legs and caps during the cleaning process (for example, for stuffing and baking the latter), you should also stock up with a spoon with a narrow tip.

How to rinse mushrooms before cleaning

It is very important not only to clean the champignon mushrooms correctly, but also to rinse them in accordance with all the rules. This step cannot be skipped! Regardless of the conditions under which they were bought, or where mushrooms were grown, they must be washed. It’s enough to hold a home-made product under running water.

It must be remembered that champignons absorb moisture very quickly. If there is a lot of liquid in them, it will be more difficult to prepare a product deliciously. Therefore, it is necessary to wash such mushrooms very quickly.

It will be enough to put the mushrooms in a large colander or sieve, pour clean ice water for 5 - 7 seconds. After that, be sure to shake off the mushrooms from excess fluid.

Tasty recipe:stuffed champignons

The washed mushrooms should be distributed on paper towels and let them lie down for several minutes. The less discussed mushrooms spend in water, the tastier they will be in the end.

If the mushrooms are prepared for freezing, they should never be washed. Enough dry cleaning.

Do I need to peel the hat

It is not necessary to peel the hat and remove the plates. This should only be done if the film is torn. Otherwise, it will significantly spoil the visual appeal of the mushroom dish (especially if the mushrooms are cooked whole).

If you still decide to remove the peel from the hat, you need to do this carefully with a sharp knife. The peel is easy to pick up from the bottom. It remains only to pull it up. Similarly, you need to process each mushroom in a circle.

Professional chefs also note that the peel of a hat should always be removed during the cleaning of mushrooms, if you plan to prepare a creamy soup. Removing this part from the mushrooms will make the dish especially tender.

It is interesting:how to grow champignons at home

How to clean mushrooms before cooking

There are several secrets on how to clean fresh champignons before preparing them further:

  1. The first thing to do is to refresh the place where the mushrooms are cut to a light shade. The longer the product spent in the refrigerator or on the counter, the more you need to cut it off.
  2. If there is sand or particles of soil on the mushrooms, they must be removed by hand or a napkin. Do not rinse the mushrooms once again.
  3. It is necessary to remove with a sharp knife all the windward, heavily soiled and sagging places.
  4. If rot is present on the mushrooms, it cannot be cut. Such a product must immediately be completely sent to the bin. Its use (even in cropped form) can threaten a person with serious poisoning and other similar troubles.
  5. If it is not planned to cut the skin off the hats, but they are found to have deep contamination, you can remove them with any hard brush.

If you do not want to clean and rinse mushrooms, you can simplify your task. For this, today almost every supermarket sells prepared frozen or canned champignons. True, neither the first nor the second option is suitable for baking whole mushrooms.