Cleaning Wild Mushrooms
Chanterelles in particular gather a ton of forest debris. I don't care for the common advice to "clean" them with a brush - here's what I do instead.
The common advice on cleaning mushrooms is to get a brush and wipe off all the dirt and debris. In my experience, however, that takes too long and does not clean them sufficiently enough anyway.
I prefer to use a strong jet of water. The argument against using water to clean your mushrooms is that they will become soggy. This is true… but they will also become soggy if they are subjected to a huge rainstorm. I’m not going to turn away mushrooms because they have absorbed extra water. The extra water just means that they need extra time cooking or drying out before cooking if you have time. They cook up just fine, and without all that grit from whatever they were growing in.
There was a time when our sink sprayer wasn’t working all that well, and I used the spigot in the tub. I used a strainer to catch all the debris. I have also heard of some folks that use an air compressor, but I’ve never tried it. Seems like your mushrooms would need to be awfully dry for this to work.
Stay tuned for cooking and preserving the bounty.
Extra tip: collect all the ends and bits and that collect in the sink, and put them in a bowl or bucket of water to germinate the spores. If you have firs or other conifers that are associated with Chanterelles they may eventually grow. Though, it is unlikely. They still haven’t figured out how to grow ectomycorrhizal fungi commercially. No harm in trying though.
Donations: the information that is provided here is free for gardeners of all financial means. If you’d like to financially support this site, you can make a one-time donation or monthly subscriptions on this link. All proceeds will fund more garden projects to share here with you, dear readers, thank you! And thank you SO much to the folks that have supported me. Your contributions mean so much.