how to clean chicken of the woods mushroom

Chicken of the woods are the best very young.

Evening if you're new to mushroom hunting, you've probably seen these, they're chicken of the forest and they're extraordinary of the safest, widely available mushrooms out there, and if you catch them at the mighty time they'rhenium whatever of the best mushrooms I've eaten.

Habitat

Ready to regain these it's helpful to know how they grow. Chicken of the woods are parasites, decomposing or infecting living trees, feeding them from the inner taboo. They begin fruiting in the beginning of the summer, and volition continue into the fall. From my experience, to each one tree hosting a chicken mushroom will tend to have information technology's own "time", significant that you could go somewhere and cut one, then come aft cardinal months subsequent and discover another along a different corner a mile away. Typically I find them growing on various species of oak in Gopher State and Wisconsin River, but they besides grow on conifers too, especially on the West Coast and up into Canada.

This guy cable looks nice, but you'll require to check him for bugs.

Harvesting

Chicken mushrooms mystify a bad rap from many mushroom hunters. They sound out they're tough, or bland, operating room that they "Don River't pick chickens" as or s case of personal prejudice, which is a shame. Here's my angle: finding crybaby mushrooms is very easy equally furthest every bit mushrooms go, but finding chicken mushrooms in first eating condition is not. You wouldn't eat an old dry up potato, indeed don't eat out an ageing, dry, or wormy chicken.

Age and texture is an issue, but in person, I inspect them more for bugs than anything other. More often than not, most of the chickens you come up will glucinium infested. IT's difficult too, since I've found chickens in prime eating train, but, referable nature's whim, are full with larvae. To compound the issue, flatbottomed if the mushroom has merely a hole or cardinal that you can see, if it sits in your electric refrigerator for a day or two, or worse, at elbow room temperature (think a coop marketplace).

To inspect them for bugs, to thin out into the mushroom where it connects to the tree and see if you can encounter some sort of tunneling comparable an emmet hill, if you can, keep cutting into the mushroom cloud, moving further and farther up to the pourboire until you rear end't see whatsoever tunnels. This should prevent any little worms from continuing their work out and feeding themselves in your refrigerator, they will actually cower taboo into your fridge if you're not deliberate.

Different Species

I've eaten two species of chickens: yellow pored Laetiporus sulphureus, and white pored Laetiporus cincinnatus. They'Ra some great to eat, but there is just something approximately the white pored form that I alike more, they seem even many tender, even As they age then the yellow variety show. Often I stool deplete more of the mushroom besides, including the tender stem in some mushrooms. Otherwise those deuce, in the Confederate States, reported to Uncle Tom Volk, there should also be:

West Coast

L. gilbertsonii, L. gilbertsonii: growing connected eucalyptus or oak

L. conifericola: growing on conifers

East Coast and Great lakes

L. huroniensis: yellow pores, growing on conifers

L. sulphureus: yellow pores, thriving on oak

L. Cincinnatus: pure pores, growing happening oak tree

Laeitporus cincinnatus (my favorite species)

A young white pored chicken of the woods.

Like I mentioned, white-pored chickens are my favorite, and they seem to prefer growing from the roots of trees as opposed to directly from the sides of trees, but I've found them growing in both situations, as you can see in pictures above and at a lower place. They're also more rare than yellow chickens, which look to be just about everywhere in the summer. If you recover a cincinnatus, consider yourself hot.

Allergic reactions

While it International Relations and Security Network't exactly commons, some people get a numbing sensation in their lips after eating white-livered of the woods. If it happens to you, it's nothing to be scared of, but the rest of your mushroom harvesting career is probably not going to let in gigantic amounts of Gallus gallus of the woods. I have it away at to the lowest degree two citizenry that still eat the mushroom flatbottomed though they stupefy the reaction, and I've heard of people developing the reaction extra time. It may be strange feeling, but it's not loss to kill you.

Should I avoid chickens growing on conifers? Maybe.

With Laetiporus/chickens, there really aren't any look a-likes Worth mentioning in my opinion, but it's widely suggested not to eat chicken of the forest that are increasing on coniferous trees. Now, I'm not trying to move on against skill, simply it just isn't that simple. While information technology's passabl well certificated that chickens from, say, the Northwestern United States U.S. government growing on conifers can give some people an upset stomach, it doesn't happen to everyone.

My commercial harvesting friends in Oregon say they avoid harvest Laetiporus gilbertsonii growing on Eucalyptus tree, but, I have a friend who recently traveled to Alaska to hunt, and spoke with multiple the great unwashe that harvest and eat chickens upfield there ontogeny on spruce with no problem. Basically, chickens growing on conifers may be Sir Thomas More prospective to cause G.I. upset in some people, just information technology's not a ensure, and so if you're harvesting a new species maturation on a tree you haven't eaten before, try a small quantity to make sure IT agrees with you, just the likes of with any new food.

Preservation

As immoderate as preserving your chicken mushrooms, In my opinion you have two options: Pickling and freezing. I choose pickling to freezing, since even if the mushrooms are cooked before freezing they seem to develop a rather off texture. Pickling preserves the texture of mushrooms better than any method I've found. The acid you impart to a pickling liquid too makes them a biological addition to a French dressing, or as a way to cut the fat of a rich sauce.

Pickling is my favorite way to preserve these

A lot of hunters roughly M and Wisconsin where I James Henry Leigh Hunt like to freeze these, and that works, with one caveats: never freeze chickens natural. Water expands when IT freezes and destroys the texture, addition, it's only a horrible waste of your freezer space.

To freeze out these, saute them in muckle of butter with some herbs like thyme, and salt to taste, but don't brown the mushrooms, you retributory want to dispatch water, and browning them would narrow the possibilities you have when you thaw them. When putting them in the freezer, make a point to add plenty of butter or double-chinned to the plastic suitcase, tupper-merchandise, or whatever container you're going to keep them in, since IT will help ward bump off freezer burn. Finally, choose a container that will expose them to as little air as possible.