Content
Edible raincoat is an outwardly unusual mushroom with numerous useful properties and good taste. To understand how to use it with benefit and pleasure, you need to study its description and photo.
Description of the edible raincoat
The edible raincoat appears under many names, it is also called a real or pearl raincoat, a spiky raincoat. Among the people, names such as hare potatoes, grandfather's tobacco or dust collector, devil's apple or tobacco mushroom are common.
Outwardly, the dust collector is well recognizable, it has a characteristic pear-shaped or clavate shape of the fruiting body, where the leg gently flows into the cap. The diameter of the upper spherical part, or cap, is 2 to 5 cm. The lower cylindrical part, or leg, reaches 2 cm in girth and rises to 6 cm in height. In young raincoats, the fruit body is white, warty-prickly, and in adults, it is brown or buffy, smooth and without thorns. The peel of the fruiting body is a kind of two-layer shell, smooth on the outside and leathery on the inside.
The flesh of the edible slicker is white and friable, the young fruiting bodies are suitable for collection and consumption. Over time, raincoats become powdery, their pulp turns brown and dries up, if you hit such a mushroom, it will scatter like tobacco. Such fruiting bodies are no longer suitable for collection.
Doubles and their differences
Since the edible raincoat has a very unusual appearance, it can only be confused with a few mushrooms. These are mainly related types of raincoats, some of them are not suitable for human consumption.
False raincoat ordinary
An ordinary, or lemon, pseudo-raincoat has a similar in structure ovoid fruiting body about 6 cm in height, the surface of the fungus is covered with darkish scales. A false raincoat is not suitable for food, but it is quite simple to distinguish it from an edible one - the color of an inedible species is most often light brown or brownish, the flesh is yellow in the cut.
Warty pseudo-raincoat
This mushroom also has a structure characteristic of raincoats - the fruit body does not have pronounced legs and caps, but more resembles an oblong potato in shape and size. The warty false fungus in the upper part is covered with characteristic growths, similar not to thorns, but to warts. It is not used in food, it is slightly toxic and can provoke nausea and stomach pain.
You can distinguish a warty pseudo-raincoat from an edible one by the absence of thorns and by the pulp in the cut. In the first, it is milky white with yellowish veins; as the mushroom matures, it darkens.
Spotted pseudo-raincoat
The spotted variety has the same fruiting body as the pearl edible slicker, but differs in color. Although the mushroom itself is white or light yellow at a young age, its surface is covered with small brown specks, giving the dust collector a leopard-like color.
The pseudo-raincoat is not eaten, as it can cause intestinal upset. Species can be distinguished by several features - by color, by the absence of thorns on the top of the pseudo-raincoat, by a very dense skin covering the fruiting body.
Death cap
The most dangerous double of the edible raincoat is the pale toadstool. In adulthood, it is impossible to confuse an edible dust collector with a deadly toadstool, but young fruiting bodies have a certain similarity. An inexperienced mushroom picker can mistake a toadstool for a raincoat while it is in the "egg" stage and barely rises above the ground, representing a convex, oblong white fruit body without a pronounced leg.
You can distinguish the species among themselves by the skin, in the dustman it is rough, covered with warty growths-thorns, while the young pale toadstool is completely smooth.
Where and how it grows
On the territory of Russia and throughout Eurasia, the mushroom is widespread - it can be found in the Central region, and in the south, and in the northern regions, and in the Far East. Edible raincoat grows in coniferous and mixed forests and in meadows, on roadsides and pastures, the species is not very picky about soils. It appears most often after heavy rains, which explains its name.
Sometimes you can see the raincoat one by one, but more often it bears fruit in small groups. The species grows from early summer to late autumn, meets it from early June to November.
Is the mushroom edible or not
Contrary to stereotypes, the pearl raincoat belongs to the category of edible and quite tasty mushrooms. It can be processed in almost all ways, but there is one condition - only young fruit bodies with dense white pulp are suitable for eating.
The composition and calorie content of edible raincoats
An edible raincoat not only has a delicate, pleasant taste, but can also be beneficial for the body. Its young pulp contains:
- fats and polysaccharides;
- antibiotic compounds;
- vitamins and minerals;
- valuable amino acids, including leucine;
- tyrosine;
- ergosterol;
- calvacic acid and digestive enzymes.
Among the useful properties of an edible raincoat, one can note its increased nutritional value, even higher than that of a champignon. At the same time, the calorie content is low - only 27 kcal per 100 g of pulp.
How edible raincoats are prepared
The edible mushroom is suitable for all cooking methods and can be boiled and fried, marinated and frozen. But, first of all, it is required to process the fruit bodies - after collecting them, they are carefully cleaned of debris, trying not to damage the pulp, and the rough upper skin is removed. Then the skin on the pulp is picked up with a knife and carefully rolled with your fingers.
The peeled pulp is cut into small pieces, at the same time checking for the absence of worminess, and boiled in the standard way for 15-20 minutes in salted water.
Edible raincoat recipes
Several recipes for making young raincoats are especially popular. After the initial processing, you can prepare an edible raincoat by any means - fry, add to soup, or make a separate dish with vegetables and sour cream.
Fried raincoats
The simplest recipe suggests first boiling and then frying the mushroom pulp. This is done like this:
- boiled fruit bodies are cut and rolled in flour;
- mushrooms are spread in a frying pan greased with vegetable oil, salted to taste and fried for only 5-10 minutes;
- the finished dish is poured with any sauce, mushrooms are mixed with bell peppers or onions, and then served on the table.
You can use mushroom pulp with boiled potatoes or pasta, the dish will turn out to be nutritious and tasty.
Raincoat soup
Another simple recipe is mushroom pulp soup. Boiled raincoats should be cut into small slices, lightly fried in a pan, and then added to chicken broth with onions and finely chopped carrots. Boil the soup for about 10 minutes, before serving, you can also add canned peas and a little greens to the broth.
Raincoats with sour cream and potatoes
A delicious independent dish is raincoats combined with potatoes, sour cream and onions. The recipe looks like this:
- Peel 300 g of potatoes and boil lightly in salted water;
- while the potatoes are boiling, peel and wash with 500 g of raincoats, and then fry them in a pan for 20-25 minutes;
- after that, until a pleasant golden hue is obtained, 2 onions cut into half rings are fried in a pan, mushrooms are added to the onion, pepper and salted to taste;
- onions with mushrooms are fried for another 15 minutes, and shortly before cooked, pour 2 tablespoons of sour cream.
After that, the mushroom pulp with onions remains to be removed from the stove and served with potatoes on the table.
Harvesting edible raincoats for the winter
Several recipes suggest preparing fruit bodies for long storage. In this case, it will be possible to use an edible raincoat in a dried, pickled or salted form even in winter.
Pickling
A simple recipe for pickling edible raincoats looks like this:
- fresh mushrooms are processed before cooking and boiled for only 20 minutes;
- then the raincoats are placed in sterile jars and poured with hot marinade;
- the marinade itself is prepared on the basis of a decoction from under the mushrooms - 20 g of salt and sugar are added to the hot broth, simmer for 2 minutes over low heat and pour 60 ml of vinegar.
A jar of pickled mushrooms is tightly closed and cooled under a warm blanket, and then stored in the refrigerator.
Canning
Another quick recipe is canning edible raincoats:
- About 500 g of mushroom pulp is boiled in salted water for 40 minutes.
- Then in a frying pan, lightly fry 3 onions cut into half rings and 1 chopped carrot.
- Mushrooms and vegetables are mixed and chopped to a puree state, and then 20 ml of vinegar is added and laid out in sterile jars.
The resulting mushroom "caviar" is suitable for use with most dishes and can be stored in the refrigerator throughout the winter.
Drying
Raincoats are suitable for drying - they are stored in this form for a long time, and you can add them to any hot dishes. There are 2 ways to dry mushrooms:
- Naturally... Fresh raincoats are cleaned of forest debris, wiped with a clean cloth, and then strung on a string and hung in one of the rooms in a ventilated place. When all moisture has evaporated from the pulp, the dried mushroom is ready to use.
- In the oven... Raincoats are cleaned of adhering debris and cut if necessary, laid out on a wire rack and first dried at 45 ° C, and then the temperature is slightly added and at 60 ° C the fruit bodies are dried for another 3 hours.
In the latter case, the oven door should be ajar so that the temperature does not rise too high.
Salting
The most elementary recipe for harvesting for the winter is salting an edible raincoat. You just need to boil the mushroom pulp for 15 minutes, and then lay it in layers in a glass jar, sprinkling each layer with salt. When the jar is full, you will need to close it with gauze and put the load on top.
After a few days, the mushrooms will release a large amount of juice, and after another month they will be ready to eat.
Freezing
Another recipe suggests freezing an edible young dustbag for the winter, at any time it can be removed and used for cooking. Fresh mushrooms are cleaned of adhering debris and lightly wiped, then cut into medium-sized slices, laid out in plastic containers and sent to the freezer.
You do not need to boil mushrooms before freezing. You just need to make sure that the fruit bodies are dry, if they are too wet, this will negatively affect the quality of the harvest.
Medicinal properties of edible raincoats
Pearl raincoats have many beneficial properties - fruit bodies are used in folk medicine. In particular, these mushrooms:
- used to heal wounds and cuts - the pulp stops bleeding, disinfects tissues and accelerates healing;
- used for the treatment and prevention of cancer - calvacin in the composition of the fungus shows good antitumor properties;
- used to remove toxins and toxins from the body - raincoats can even get rid of heavy metals and radionuclides.
The pulp of pearl raincoats is used to create drugs aimed at combating bronchial asthma and tuberculosis, diabetes and thyroid ailments. It is useful to use fruiting bodies for angina pectoris, hypertension, renal ailments and varicose veins, reduced immunity and fever.
Is it possible to grow edible raincoats on the site
Edible raincoats are suitable for self-cultivation, they can be bred at their summer cottage and not worry about looking for fruit bodies in the forest.
Since mushrooms are actively throwing out spores, it will be easy to collect material for growing an edible raincoat. You need to wait until the time when the mushrooms are fully ripe, and then collect the required amount of spores in a prepared container.
Then, on the site, you need to choose a suitable place - it is desirable that it be located in the shade, in thin grass, on wet soil. The seeds of an edible raincoat are sown in the loosened ground, lightly sprinkled and forgotten until the next season, there is no need to care for the spores of the raincoat.
Fruit bodies on the sown area will appear in a year, if the place has been chosen correctly. From time to time, the site will need to be sown with new spores, this will ensure a good annual yield.
Conclusion
Edible raincoat is a healthy and quite tasty mushroom with good culinary properties. Only young fruit bodies are suitable for use, but they can be processed by all existing methods.
