Preserving Giant Puffball
CostFamily
condition. I found it in the Wasatch mountains East of Ogden Utah, (about 5
miles from where the mens downhill olympic ski races took place) No maggaots
or signs of deterioration. I plan to cut it up and cubes and freeze it for use
latter on. Is this a good way to preserve puffballs or is there a better way?
Dennis
Colin Davidson
"CostFamily" <costf...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020615161542...@mb-da.aol.com...
The giant puffball isn't the easiest beast to preserve. My advice is to hold
a dinner party and feed it to your friends!
If you do wish to preserve it, I reccomend slicing it really thinly and
drying it in a -warm- place for several hours. Take the dried flakes and put
them in a tightly sealed jar for later use. They add great flavour to soups
and stews.
Another good option is to use it to make such a soup or stew and freeze
that, in my opinion that gives a far better result than the limp, damp,
spongy thing you get by freezing slices.
Basidium
I have had great results by slicing the puffball and freezing the slices with
sheets of waxed paper separating them. As with all fresh-frozen mushrooms, the
trick is to have the cooking pan hot before you even get the mushrooms out of
the freezer. (If you allow them to thaw first, they turn into a gelatinous
mess.) Done this way, it's darn close to "fresh" in terms of flavor and
texture.
David W. Fischer
~check out audio samples from my new CD at www.ixnygraphics.com
Coauthor, "Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America" and
"Mushrooms of Northeastern North America"
Mycology: http://members.aol.com/mycology/index.html
Daniel B. Wheeler
slabs, then offered for sale to restaurants and food specilists
(chefs). Dried material reported reconstitutes well. I cannot vouch
for the flavor, though.
The classic harvest method (assuming the specimen is near where you
live) is to take a 1/2"-1" slab off the top of the mushroom, and allow
the rest to "heal". The initial cut will cause the mushroom to slow
down development until it has healed from the wound, and allows
several meals to be made from it (supposedly). I cannot personally
verify this procedure: I have not found a giant puffball.
(boo-hoo-hoo)
Daniel B. Wheeler
www.oregonwhitetruffles.com
Colin Davidson
"Daniel B. Wheeler" <dwhe...@ipns.com> wrote in message
news:6dafee1b.02061...@posting.google.com...
> I have seen specimens which were sliced 1/2"-1" thick and dried in
> slabs, then offered for sale to restaurants and food specilists
> (chefs). Dried material reported reconstitutes well. I cannot vouch
> for the flavor, though.
>
> The classic harvest method (assuming the specimen is near where you
> live) is to take a 1/2"-1" slab off the top of the mushroom, and allow
> the rest to "heal". The initial cut will cause the mushroom to slow
> down development until it has healed from the wound, and allows
> several meals to be made from it (supposedly). I cannot personally
> verify this procedure: I have not found a giant puffball.
You've not found a giant puffball? I'm genuinely astonished! I'd have
thought you'd be tripping over them out there!
That harvesting technique can work well, depending on the age of the
specimen and the weather conditions. If it stays cool-ish and wet-ish then
you'll be fine cutting it like that for a couple of weeks without any
problem, I've harvested four or five good slices that way. You get problems
if the weather becomes hotter and drier (leading to the specimen ripening,
turning greeny yellow and inedible) or if you get a sudden wet patch, as
heavy rain can make such damaged specimen rot.
As I mentioned earlier, my favoured method for using up a larger specimen is
to hold a dinner party :-)
B.W. Freyburger
Johan Runeberg, webmaster of www.hven.com, for suggests cooking
jätteröksvamp (Swedish for giant puffballs) just like schnitzel, which I
like a lot. Johan Runeberg indicates you can fry up the "schnitzels" most
of the way and freeze them. Then when you thaw and finish cooking them the
rest of the way they are just as good as if they were never frozen he says.
I have never tried freezing them as I generally have nothing left over.
You can find my adaptation of this recipe at
http://fungi.0catch.com/Calvatia_sp.htm#Puffball_Schnitzel
I look forward to mushroom season here in New Mexico if it ever starts
raining and if there is a mushroom season this year (I am not sure even the
regular monsoons if they ever start can make up for the dry conditions here
as far as mushrooms go) in hopes of trying a giant puffball tonkatsu idea
which I think should be excellent.
B.W. Freyburger
http://fungi.0catch.com
Martin E Phillips
>"CostFamily" <costf...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20020615161542...@mb-da.aol.com...
>> I was fortunate today to find a beautiful 4 lb giant puffball in prestine
>> condition. I found it in the Wasatch mountains East of Ogden Utah,
>(about 5
>> miles from where the mens downhill olympic ski races took place) No
>maggaots
>> or signs of deterioration. I plan to cut it up and cubes and freeze it
>for use
>> latter on. Is this a good way to preserve puffballs or is there a better
>way?
I've tried freezing uncooked slices of giant puffball and it was not
successful. In fact it tasted disgusting :-(
The fresh puffballs were delicious sliced and baked with bacon on top.
--
Martin E Phillips