Mushroom Hints & Tips

Handling, Storing & Preparing

Buying

Mushrooms are hand picked but bruise easily so treat them carefully and remember that the larger the mushroom, the more the flavour develops.


White Mushrooms

Look for firm white buttons with closed cups.  

Brown Mushrooms

Brown Buttons - Look for firm brown buttons with closed cups.

Portabello Mushrooms - Look for large open cups with well coloured gills.


Storage

Loose mushrooms keep best transferred to a paper bag and stored in the salad drawer of the fridge.  During storage, if the mushrooms look shrivelled or are excessively 'slimy' feeling, then they have past their best eating period and should be replaced.

If you purchase mushrooms in a Meadow Mushrooms pre-packaged bag or in Meadow Mushrooms cling film, they should be stored in that packaging.  Meadow Mushrooms use specially designed packaging in order to extend the shelf life of our mushrooms.

Preparation

To prepare your mushrooms for eating, simply rinse the mushrooms under cold running water and dry them on kitchen paper.   There is no need to soak, peel or remove the stalk.

Eating

Mushrooms are super versatile and can be included in almost any meal.  They are great for filling out recipes and filling up tummys!

And remember that mushrooms are a great source of vitamins and minerals, so not only do they taste good but they are good for you too!
 

Why are Meadow Mushrooms Sold in Prepackaged Trays?

To maintain freshness and provide a safe hygienic ‘farm to plate’ Mushroom product.

Mushrooms exhibit very high rates of respiration as they continue to develop even after harvest and in some cases can make containers made of certain materials become moisture ridden, lose shape and crush. The film we use on our mushroom punnets and trays can also play a huge part in allowing for this respiration. We have to try and get the correct oxygen permeation level of the film matched to the respiration rate of our mushrooms.

Therefore we have to select punnets and film which allow for the complexities of our mushrooms. The punnets also have to withstand the temperature cycles of the humidity of the growing sheds, the chilled environment of the coolers, refrigerated transportation, onto the supermarket shelves and ultimately to the consumers home. Mushrooms do not have protective ‘skins’ like many fruit and vegetable – by packaging them at the farm we help them make this journey as fresh as possible with minimum handling.

Our current punnets and trays are made out of Hipstyrene (HIPS) which is a 6 on the recycling code. The hipstyrene material works well with the mushroom product and retains its shape, strength and protective ability.

We also use a film that has been tested for use with mushrooms and which helps withstand the deterioration of what can be a highly perishable product.

If  you are looking to learn a little bit more about cooking terms, let our Glossary guide you through the various ways you can cook mushrooms!