Experienced mushroom pickers, going on a "silent hunt" in April-May, are well aware that morels can please them - amazing spring first-born with a characteristic appearance. The morel mushroom has a hat with a fancy embossed pattern that fits snugly to the stem. Being a saprophyte, it performs an important role in nature - it destroys the dead remains of living organisms and turns them into inorganic and simple organic compounds.
Types of morels
Each of the three types of these wonderful creations of nature has both common features (they have a wrinkled cap surface, hollow inside, are considered conditionally edible, grow in the temperate zone), and characteristic features.
Edible morel (there are names "ordinary" and "real") - not only the most common representative of the genus. It is larger than some of its relatives, grows in height from 6 to 15-20 cm. With a relatively large size of the stem and cap, the morel mushroom does not have any noticeable weight, since its fruiting body is hollow inside. Hat tightly adherent to the stem, ovoid or ovate-roundedforms has a different color: ocher-yellow, gray, brown. On its uneven surface are cells of irregular shape, vaguely resembling a honeycomb.
The tall morel grows in deciduous and coniferous forests, more often in clearings and forest edges. It can be found in gardens, kitchen gardens and even mountains, but it rarely gets into the baskets of mushroom pickers. The explanation is simple: in nature, this type of morel is not often found. Mushrooms (photo), reaching 25-30 cm in height, have olive-brown cells.
The conical morel looks very similar to its fellow with the name "high". The same elongated-conical shape of the cap, tightly adherent to the stem, the same folds or ribs on the upper part, forming cells. The conical morel mushroom is distinguished by the smaller size of the fruiting body and color (yellow-brown, black-brown, grayish-black). It is rare, prefers to grow near ash, alder and aspen, as well as in places where the topsoil is disturbed (on roadsides, slopes of ravines).
How to cook morel mushrooms
Only young people who have not had time to accumulate toxic substances are suitable for eating. Most often, morels fried in oil appear on the table of connoisseurs, which is not surprising, because they, cooked in this way, look very appetizing, taste good and exude a not too pronounced, delicate aroma.
Mushroom morel requires preliminary preparation for directfrying process. First of all, the collected mushrooms must be cleaned of debris and washed in the most thorough way so that there is no sand left in the cells that can ruin the whole dish. Sliced mushrooms are dipped in hot water, boiled for 5-10 minutes, put in a colander and put a frying pan on a small fire. To fry 500 g of morels, you will need to melt butter in a pan (about 2 tablespoons). Then add mushrooms seasoned with s alt, pepper and a little lemon juice. The appearance of a golden crust indicates the completion of the cooking process.
