How To Store Your Mushrooms To Make Them Last Longer

The interaction between fungi and moisture may be tight. Mushrooms seem to like moisture and cling to it at all costs, yet their bond is poisonous since moisture hastens the fungi's mortality. Keeping mushrooms dry is therefore part of your duty as a mushroom supplier (until you're ready to consume them).

You may avoid this by not purchasing them too long head; it's ideal if you wait until a few days before you intend to consume them, although certain kinds will remain good for a week. If you can, buy your mushrooms whole and loose so you can check each one for damage and make sure it's solid and devoid of soft, mushy moist places or spots.

Not everyone agrees on the "optimal" storage option when it comes to storing data. blue meanie mushrooms , according to Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking," are prone to spoiling because of moisture buildup on the top of the mushrooms when refrigerated. When storing mushrooms, McGee suggests using a paper bag or other moisture-wicking packing to prevent them from drying out. Cook's Illustrated recommends using an open Ziploc bag to enable the ethylene gas generated by the mushrooms to be expelled, which will extend the mushrooms' usable lifespan.

This contradicting information drove me to call farmer Dan, the man in charge of the mushroom hunt that I would be participating in next month. This approach of using plastic bags didn't go down well with Dan:

I'm the team's paper bag. Even if a plastic bag is open, it can soon turn slimy. In addition, the fungus and the conditions under which it was gathered play a role. how wet or how dry is the fungus? It's better to get slimy in a paper bag than to dry out in a plastic one.

If you decide to use a paper bag, make sure it is completely dry before using it.

If you buy canned mushrooms, keep them sealed in the can until you're ready to use them in a recipe. The packing is meant to keep the goods cold for as long as possible until they are picked up by a customer and delivered. If you just use a few mushrooms at a time, you may get close to the original packing by wrapping the container with new plastic wrap and making a few holes in it.

Keep your mushrooms out of the produce drawer, whether they are in grocery store packaging or a paper bag from the farmers market. The atmosphere is too humid for them there. Toss them if they start to smell bad, appear slimy, or feel slimy after a few days in the refrigerator main compartment.

However, a little wrinkling is tolerable in this context. They found that the slightly antique-looking white mushrooms actually had a richer, earthier flavor than the unblemished ones. This is most likely because "some moisture evaporated and the flavors concentrated, and some proteins had been broken down to peptides" and "amino acids like glutamic acid that add umami flavor." Cook's Illustrated says this.

Mushroom washing has also caused numerous disagreements. For the most part, even after a brief washing, mushrooms do not absorb enough water to change their moisture content considerably according to Cook's Illustrated research, which showed that types with exposed gills absorb more water. The only exception is that you should wait to wash them until right before cooking or eating them, as this will prevent any moisture from remaining on the surface and speeding up the decomposition process.

Just give it a brief washing to get rid of any loose debris, then spin it in the salad spinner or pat it dry with paper towels before grilling, browning, or sautéing. (Drier foods are less prone to steam because steam is the enemy of browning.)