It's Raining Giant Puffballs!

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It's Raining Giant Puffballs!
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cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 5:59 pm Post subject: It's Raining Giant Puffballs!

Or it is around here anyway!

In the four little patches of scrubby woods we pick in, we found them on five different sites today. The biggest was twice the size of your head, the smallest around tennis ball size.

Those we picked filled the basket; the gaps between filled up with many species of agaricus (at least five species), some russulas, oyster mushrooms, fairy ring shrooms (could have spent days picking those there are so many) and random other bits and bobs.

The rucksack is also full of good sweet apples. And we've got some lovely autumn growth of cow parsley.

What a day!

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 6:04 pm Post subject: Re: It's Raining Giant Puffballs!

cab wrote:

The biggest was twice the size of your head

Some heads are bigger than others.....

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 7:10 pm Post subject:
Is there an reliable way of keeping them or is it pretty much a eat what you find asap kind of food?

2steps

Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 5349
Location: Surrey

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 7:33 pm Post subject:
sounds like you had a good day. I didn't know mushrooms could get so big! I haven't seen any mushrooms where I pick, though I don't mind.

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 7:36 pm Post subject:
Wow, i shall have to look again. I missed some a few weeks ago, they were nothing but little brown bundles of puff by the time I got to them

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 7:44 pm Post subject:

Bernie66 wrote:

Is there an reliable way of keeping them or is it pretty much a eat what you find asap kind of food?

Best eaten fresh, but you can cook them and then freeze them. The really young, firm ones can be dried if you're really, really quick about it, and the result is a handy, intensely flavoured mushroom styrofoam, best broken into a powder and stored in a tightly stoppered jar. I dry one every couple of years and use the powder in risottos.

But I'd stress that you really, REALLY have to dry them FAST. They'll try to ripen as you do it, and that means you can't eat them. Oh, and it stinks to high heaven does drying puffballs.

We're phoning round some friends and asking them to help us eat them tomorrow evening

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 8:14 pm Post subject:
"handy, intensely flavoured mushroom styrofoam" - you are not selling their taste very well I can imagine what you mean though, and will give it a go -drying them in the shed rather than the house though!

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 9:01 pm Post subject:

Bernie66 wrote:

"handy, intensely flavoured mushroom styrofoam" - you are not selling their taste very well

I can imagine what you mean though, and will give it a go -drying them in the shed rather than the house though!

If you're going to go for it... Slice it THIN, and dry it warm.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 05 9:23 pm Post subject:

We had puffball (dipped in egg and friedn with bacon), chips (home grown desiree, with the skin left on), runner beans and fennel (also from the plot) for dinner, followed by blackbery ice cream and apple crumble (the fruit foraged for). Washed down with lemon balm wine.

I'm feeling rather bloated now, and I'm mulling over how we're going to cook puffball tomorrow. And the next day.

Tomorrow may have to be have two or three mushroom meals

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 05 12:40 am Post subject:
I'm subscribing to the cooking then freezing theory, it's the first time i've tried it this year, and my parasols didn't lose their shape or texture at all. Very satisfactory. Not tried it with puffballs yet (see above) but it can't be that different, can it?

Lloyd

Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 05 12:58 am Post subject:
The fields here are drowning in them. I used the old stale ones for taget pracice the other week!!.............When do they go beyond edible, though?...do they have to be creamy white to be eaten?

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 05 1:01 am Post subject:
Yep! at the first signs of brownness I reckon target practise is the best thing for them!

Lloyd

Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 05 1:17 am Post subject:
Nice spelling, eh?

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 05 1:18 am Post subject:
It's late!

Lloyd

Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 05 1:19 am Post subject:
True. I'm just too full from a meal out to be able or comfortable to sleep yet!

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