Bitter mushroom (bitter milk mushroom, bitter mushroom): photo and description of how to soak and salt

Bitter milk mushrooms (bitters, mountain goats, red bitters) are considered to be the most bitter of all representatives of the Mlechnik genus - a colorless juice that is abundantly contained in their pulp, extremely pungent and pungent. Moreover, these mushrooms are conditionally edible and very popular in Russia and Belarus. After the obligatory pretreatment, they are often fried, salted or pickled. Fans of "quiet hunting" should know what a bitter milk mushroom looks like, where and during what period you can find it, how to soak it and cook it correctly. You need to be careful when collecting these mushrooms: there are several species among the milkmen that are similar in appearance to the mountain goats, but not all of them are edible.

Description of bitters

Bitter milk mushroom (red bitter, mountain goat, bitter, bitter, bitter milk, bitter milk, bitter milk, pathik, traveler) is a lamellar mushroom, a representative of the Milky genus of the Russula family. Its dense white or creamy flesh has a faint sour smell and a pronounced pungent, pungent taste, from which the mushroom got its name.

In Latin, the mountain woman is called Lactarius rufus, because her hat is painted in characteristic red tones.

In Belarus, the local popular name "karouka" ("cow") is also widespread.

Description of the hat

The diameter of the cap of the bitter mushroom varies from 2.5 to 14 cm. In a young mushroom, it is fleshy, flat-convex in shape with a slightly tucked edge. With aging, the cap becomes prostrate, and then funnel-shaped, while a protruding cone-shaped tubercle is clearly visible in the center. The integumentary skin is dark red, brick or red-brown in color (sometimes it can be lighter, fawn shades). The surface of the cap is dry. It is smoother in young fruiting bodies and somewhat “felt” to the touch in older ones.

The plates are frequent, narrow, at first reddish-yellow, later they acquire a brown tint (at the very stem they can be pinkish). Spores are reticulate, oval in shape. Spore powder of white or cream color.

Milky sap, abundantly protruding in places of damage, is white. Oxidizing in air, it does not change color.

The pulp is firm, but brittle. She is extremely rarely wormy.

Leg description

The legs grow in length from 3 to 7-10 cm and are up to 2 cm thick. They have a regular cylindrical shape and break easily. A white fibrous mycelium is always present near the base.

The legs are usually painted in the same tone with the cap or slightly lighter than it. Their surface can be covered with a whitish fluff.

In young milk mushrooms, the legs are solid, in older ones they become hollow in the middle.Sometimes a spongy substance of a reddish or grayish color appears inside the stem of the fungus.

Where and how it grows

Bitter milk mushroom is the most common representative of the milkmen. They say about this mushroom that it grows remarkably in any forests of a temperate climatic zone. Most often, the bitter mushroom forms mycorrhiza with conifers, as well as with birch.

This mushroom prefers acidic soils. It is especially abundant in pine or mixed forests. Where it is rather humid, the ground is covered with moss and the tree trunks are covered with lichen.

Bitters grow both singly and in large groups. The harvesting season, depending on the climate, can begin in June and last until the first frost in mid-autumn. These mushrooms bear fruit most actively in August-September.

Doubles and their differences

It is known that the bitter milk mushroom has several doubles among other milkmen. You need to have a good idea of ​​how to recognize the conditionally edible Horny Goat Weed, since among the mushrooms similar to it, you can stumble upon those that should not be eaten.

Liver Miller

This mushroom is very often confused with a load of bitter. However, it is inedible because it has an unpleasant, pungent taste that cannot be corrected in any way.

Key differences of this mushroom:

• its cap is slightly smaller than that of the bitter, it does not exceed 7 cm in diameter;
• the leg is somewhat thinner - up to 1 cm;
• the integumentary skin on the cap has a lighter, liver-brown color, sometimes with an olive tint;
• the milky juice in the air changes color to yellow.

Miller camphor

This "double" of the bitter mushroom belongs to edible mushrooms, but it is considered tasteless.

Its distinctive features:

• it is smaller (the cap grows only up to 6 cm in diameter);
• its leg is significantly thinner - no more than 0.5 cm;
• the cap is colored red-brown and has wavy edges;
• as the fruiting body ages, the leg may become stained and darken;
• the tubercle in the center of the cap is much smaller than that of the bitter mushroom;
• milky juice has a watery consistency and a slightly sweet taste;
• the pulp of the mushroom specifically smells like camphor.

Marsh milky

This edible species of milkmen is similar in color to a load of bitter, but prefers to grow in swampy coniferous forests.

The following traits will help you learn:

• cap diameter up to 5 cm;
• the color of the cap of the old mushroom is uneven, it seems to "fade" along the edge;
• whitish milky juice quickly turns sulfur-yellow on exposure to air;
• the flesh on the cut has a marsh color.

Stunted miller

The stunted miller, like the bitter milk mushroom, is conditionally edible. It is often called "tender milk mushroom" and after soaking it is eaten in a salty form.

It is characterized by the following distinctive features:

• the cap is painted in lighter tones than that of a milk mushroom;
• the leg is loose, slightly widening towards the base;
• the juice on the break of the pulp is not released abundantly;
• drying out, the white milky juice quickly turns yellow.

Miller meat-red

This "double" of the bitter weight is considered edible, but it also needs to be soaked before being eaten.

Miller meat-red is distinguished by the following features:

• its leg is shorter than that of the bitter mushroom (it does not grow longer than 6 cm), it is narrowed downwards;
• the cap is dark, terracotta in color and covered with a very slimy, "greasy" skin;
• in its center there is no tubercle characteristic of the bitter milk mushroom;
• sometimes the cap can be colored unevenly: blurred brown spots can be distinguished on its surface.

Is the mushroom edible or not

In foreign science, bitter mushrooms are most often considered inedible mushrooms. In the domestic special literature, it is customary to describe them as conditionally edible, having the IV category of nutritional value.This means they can be eaten after they have been pre-cooked.

Is it possible to get poisoned with bitters

Like all conditionally edible mushrooms of the genus Mlechnik, milk mushrooms can provoke an attack of acute gastroenteritis - inflammation of the stomach and small intestine. This is due to the high content of resinous substances in the composition of their juice.

Poisoning caused by improper preparation or violation of the rules for pretreatment of bitters is mild.

How bitter mushrooms are cooked

You can cook these mushrooms in different ways. Most often they are salted cold or hot, less often they are pickled and fried. In cooking, they use well-peeled and pre-soaked milk mushrooms, boiled for 15-30 minutes.

Do I need to soak bitters

Bitter milk mushrooms must be soaked before using them for cooking. This allows you to rid the pulp of the mushrooms from the burning juice, which has an unpleasant "peppery" taste.

Before soaking, the mushrooms should be thoroughly rinsed, with a sponge or brush, clean the skin from the ground, adhering leaves or blades of grass, cut off the lower parts of the legs, leaving no more than a couple of centimeters at the base of the caps. Dark and damaged areas of fruit bodies must be removed with a knife. Large specimens should be cut in half. Next, the milk mushrooms should be folded into a wide container, filled with cold water and kept for 2-3 days. It is necessary to change the water 2-3 times a day.

What happens if the bitters are not soaked before cooking

The juice of the milk mushrooms is very pungent and pungent in taste. In the event that a culinary specialist is too lazy to soak these mushrooms, he risks simply ruining the dish.

If it happens that the bitterness can be "hammered" using seasonings and spices, you need to remember that soaking pursues not only aesthetic goals, but, above all, prevents possible harm to health. Bitter mushroom juice is rich in resinous substances, which, as mentioned above, can cause severe pain in the stomach and cause mild food poisoning.

How to fry bitter milk mushrooms

Fried mushrooms of bitters go well with potatoes with sour cream. For this dish you will need:

1. Soak the peeled and washed bitters as described above and boil for 20 minutes.
2. Peel the potatoes and boil them whole in salted water. When ready to cut it into slices.
3. Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan. Arrange the mushrooms, sprinkle them with flour. Fry, stirring constantly, until golden brown.
4. Fold the potato wedges into a suitable baking dish, on top of them - fried bitters. Pour sour cream.
5. Place in an oven preheated to 180 ° C for 15 minutes.

Salting bitters at home

It is believed that bitter mushrooms are most delicious when salted. There are two basic options for salting these mushrooms, the so-called "cold" and "hot" methods.

It is believed that it is preferable to salt these mushrooms hot by boiling them in a brine with seasonings. In this case, they turn out to be elastic and break less.

To prepare such salting, you should take:

1. Place the peeled and soaked milk mushrooms in a saucepan, add water and boil for 10 minutes.
2. Place the mushrooms in a colander and rinse immediately with clean cold water (this will make them crispy).
3. Prepare brine from water and salt. Boil it, put the mushrooms in there and boil for about 15 minutes.
4. Place some of the seasonings on the bottom of the prepared container (enamel pot or bucket). It is advisable to pre-pour greens for pickling with boiling water. Layer the mushrooms, alternating with dill and garlic.
5. Pour with cooled brine, cover with a flat plate on top and press down with pressure.
6. Put in a cold place for a couple of weeks. Having sustained this time, the mushrooms can be served to the table.

Cold salting of mushrooms of bitters implies a longer period during which the mushrooms must be kept.

For this dish you will need:

1. Mushrooms need to be prepared and soaked, then rinse thoroughly with clean water and squeeze lightly.
2. Put the bitters into prepared containers (jars), caps down, sprinkling each layer with salt and shifting with seasonings.
3. After filling the jar, put the herbs and garlic on the very top. If there is not enough liquid from the mushrooms, additionally prepare the brine and add to the container.
4. Install a wooden circle on top and put oppression. Place jars in a cellar or refrigerator.
5. You can try ready-made salting in two months.

The use of bitters in medicine

It is known that extract from fruit bodies of mushrooms of bitters has medicinal properties. In medicine, it is used as an antibiotic agent that prevents the multiplication of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and a number of groups of pathogenic bacteria that cause purulent inflammation, typhoid and paratyphoid fever.

Conclusion

Bitter mushrooms are conditionally edible mushrooms found in abundance in the forests of Russia and Belarus. Despite the fact that they have several "doubles" among other representatives of the Mlechnik clan, it is not difficult to identify mountain women by looking closely and knowing the characteristic features that distinguish them. Many mushroom pickers are afraid to collect these mushrooms due to the fact that the juice contained in their pulp is extremely bitter and pungent. However, it is enough to properly process and soak the Horny Goat Weed before salt, fry, or pickle. And in finished form, they will surely please connoisseurs of mushroom dishes.

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