How to distinguish deer horns mushrooms. Edible reindeer horn mushrooms

Mushrooms deer horns amaze with their unusual appearance. They grow on trees and resemble either deer antlers or corals. From them you can prepare dishes for every taste. The main thing is to collect them with caution, because there are inedible and poisonous mushrooms that look similar.

Deer horn mushrooms grow on trees

Number of servings: 3
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes

How to prepare an appetizer from reindeer horn mushrooms

A light mushroom salad for an appetizer is a great start. festive lunch. It is especially interesting if such a salad is made not from the usual chanterelles or champignons, but from rare and unusual mushrooms.

Before preparing the salad, boil the reindeer horns in salted water until tender. It will take no more than 30 minutes. Then follow the instructions:

Cut the mushrooms into small pieces, chop the carrots into small strips, chop the garlic. Mix these ingredients. Add salt, pepper, vegetable oil and half the vinegar. Let it brew for 30 minutes.
Cut the onion into thin half rings, pour the remaining vinegar over it and let it marinate to remove any excess bitterness.
Mix salad with onions.

Garnish the salad with sprigs of herbs or sprinkle it with chopped herbs.

Soup with mushrooms and reindeer horns

Mushroom soup – good decision For everyday lunch. If you find deer antlers on the trees in the forest, add them to the first dish. It will turn out tasty and aromatic. You will need:

0.5 kg of deer horns;
3 liters of water;
200 g carrots;
0.5 kg potatoes;
100 g onions;
200 g green canned or fresh peas;
3 cloves of garlic;
100 g butter;
100 g of hard cheese of any kind;
salt, herbs, black pepper to your taste.

How to cook soup:

Place mushrooms in boiling water salt water and cook for 30 minutes. Drain them in a colander, cool slightly and divide into thin strips.
Cut potatoes, onions, carrots into small cubes. Boil water, salt it, add vegetables there and cook until tender.
Add mushrooms and green peas to the pan. Season the soup and add salt if necessary. Reduce heat to low and simmer soup for another 15 minutes.
Grate the cheese on a fine grater. Remove the pan from the heat, add the cheese, butter, chopped dill or parsley.

Before serving, you can add a little sour cream or cream to each serving if desired. This will only enhance the taste of the first dish.

Add your favorite ingredients to the described soup and salad, don’t be afraid to experiment. Reindeer antlers go well with many other foods.

Rogatik, or as they are also called horned mushrooms, belong to the family of basidiomycetes. They have a fruit body of fleshy consistency. They are coral-branched, club-shaped and awl-shaped. Most common white with a yellow tint. Completely covered with a spore-bearing smooth layer.

You can find such a crop in the forest on the soil; less often they are found on wood residue. They are not poisonous.

Horns have large variety and sprout into large quantities, we just sometimes don’t pay attention to them. Many mushroom pickers pass by. This may be correct, because unfamiliar plants can be poisonous, but some cattails are quite edible. Even if you pick such an unfamiliar mushroom, you will not get poisoned, the only thing is that you will ruin your dinner, since some types have a specific taste.

Rogatik is a very curious representative of the mushroom kingdom. It plays a big role in the life of the forest. It is also a close relative of chanterelle mushrooms, and as you know, chanterelles can improve human health.

A variety of horntails

This mushroom has a wide variety. Let's look at the most common of them and their descriptions.

Type of pistil. Can be found in deciduous forests in the southern regions. It has a fruiting club-shaped body. The height can reach 15 cm. The spores released are white. Does not have a specific smell. Completely edible.

Truncated is a prominent representative of basidiomycete plants. It has a club-shaped shape with an expanded and thickened apex. The height is no more than 14 cm. The mushroom itself is wrinkled and dark orange in color. In places of damage it immediately becomes dark. Odorless, sweetish taste.

Reed. Belongs to the genus clavariadelphus. Vertical tongue-like shape. Height no more than 13 cm. Has a smooth and dry surface. If you are already old, then the surface of the body begins to wrinkle. The color is soft cream, but with age it acquires a yellowish tint. The pulp is dry, white and without a characteristic odor. Produces light yellow spore powder.

Comb. The shape is coral-shaped. Grows up to 10 cm in height. The pulp is quite fragile and light. It has no specific odor, but has a bitter taste. Can be found in mixed, coniferous and deciduous forests. They germinate on soil and grass.

Fawn belongs to the crab family. It grows in the form of a bush with branched and pointed branches. The apex is lobate-flat. Rogatik is white with a creamy tint. Produces white spores. When cut, it is fragile, has no special smell and has a bitter aftertaste.

The yellow horned mushroom can be found in deciduous, coniferous or mixed forest. Mainly grows in the forests of Karelia. Body color is yellow. No more than 18 cm in height. Many branched, dense bush-like branches of a cylindrical shape grow from thick white stalks. The fruit body is yellowish in color. The pulp is moist, off-white in color. The smell is reminiscent of grass, the taste is dull. The older the plant, the more bitter the taste.

Edibility of mushrooms

Very often in the forests you can meet mushroom pickers who claim that they know everything about mushrooms. But what can they say about the slingshots? In order not to accidentally get poisoned and to know for sure whether this mushroom is edible or not, we have prepared a small cheat sheet.

Benefits of edible cattails

Very often they are called coral, since in appearance they are very similar to them. Compared to others, they have a number of advantages:

when fully ripe, the weight is almost one kilogram, which easily allows you to feed all family members;
are not affected by worms, so when cleaning you will not encounter unpleasant disappointment;
have a fragrant smell (but not old ones);
there are no poisonous imitators;
easy to prepare.

Due to their specific appearance, you are unlikely to confuse them with other plants.

Use in cooking

Before cooking, you need to prepare them properly. Mushrooms should be washed thoroughly under cold running water. Since they have a tortuous structure, dirt penetrates into the most difficult places. Then boil them for 30 minutes. The water in which they were boiled is poured out. It should absolutely not be used. We rinse again under running water and set to cook for 10 minutes. Afterwards we rinse cold water. Now you can start preparing various dishes.

A simple delicious recipe mushroom soup. First, chop all the vegetables, namely, onions and (you can add half). Fill everything with cold water and cook until half cooked. Then add mushrooms and 15 g. . IN winter period You can add a few cloves to the soup. As soon as the soup boils, add pepper to taste. Reduce the heat to low and cook for another 15 minutes. The peculiarity of this soup is that it can be eaten not only hot, but also cold. When serving, sprinkle and add a spoon.

For the second course, you can simply fry them in addition to the main dish, for example mashed potatoes or buckwheat porridge. First, fry the onion in vegetable oil, first chopping it finely. Add chopped mushrooms. It's better to cut them larger. And fry until golden brown, just remember that you need to stir them constantly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To make the dishes delicious, we will tell you a few little secrets. Firstly, they should be eaten no later than 4 days after harvest. Secondly, do not pickle them or can them. Otherwise they will become bitter and rubbery. Third, don't season the mushrooms. a large number seasonings, otherwise you will overpower their unique taste.

Precautions

There are many plants that look like deer legs. Many of them are quite poisonous. Therefore, if you are new to this business, then ask an experienced mushroom picker to tell and show how to correctly collect and distinguish deer legs from other plants.

Remember that after harvesting, before cooking, you must wash and process them well, because if not prepared correctly they can have serious negative impact on your body.

Do not harvest near highways, as plants quickly absorb toxic substances.

The staghorn mushroom (coral, hornet) is scientifically called golden ramaria or yellow ramaria. The point is that it's two different types, however, they are so similar that only experienced biologists in laboratory conditions can distinguish them. The morphological data and taste qualities of these varieties are almost identical. The reindeer horn mushroom can often be found in pine forests on white moss. Very large specimens are often found - weighing about 1 kg. Sometimes, just a few hornets are enough to prepare dinner for the whole family. This macromycete is not affected by worms, with the exception of wireworms. Interesting fact is that many “silent hunters” pass by these amazing mushrooms, without even knowing that they are edible.

Edibility

Deer horn mushrooms, despite their exotic appearance, are edible. They belong to the fourth mushroom category. It is best to eat young specimens. Old mushrooms have an unpleasant aftertaste, and they also develop bitterness. The deer horn mushroom is used in cooking to prepare various dishes. It can be salted, fried, or made into soup, but the hornet is best suited for preparing main courses. Deer horns taste like chicken or shrimp (depending on the cooking method). They have unusually tender flesh.

Description

Deer horns are mushrooms whose body grows vertically and resembles a branching sea coral or for which they received their popular names. The average specimen reaches 7-16 cm in width, but there are mushrooms exceeding 20 cm in width. An interesting fact is that their height, as a rule, coincides with the width. The color of the cattail is yellow, golden yellow or light brown. In older specimens it is bright orange.

The pulp is golden-white, watery, very fragile and tender, with a pleasant aroma. In air, when broken or cut, it quickly changes color to brown (c In overripe mushrooms, when pressure is applied to the stem, the flesh acquires a red or blood-red hue. The fruiting body consists of many branches with blunt tips. Externally, the macromycete resembles coral. Its surface is dry, smooth and matte.

Spreading

The deer horn mushroom is widespread in the temperate and northern zones of Eurasia and North America. It grows in groups, prefers mossy and moist areas of soil in coniferous, mixed and deciduous forests. Sometimes it forms large communities and can grow in rows or arcs, forming “witch rings.” The hornet especially loves pine forests, but does not disdain beech and hornbeam tracts. Found in the lower and middle mountain zones. The optimal time for collection is August-October. In the southern regions, deer antlers are collected even in winter.

Peculiarities

Deer antlers, or golden ramaria (yellow), have quite a lot of doubles - similar to them coral mushrooms. However, all of them are inedible, and some are poisonous. For an experienced person, distinguishing a cattail from others will not be difficult. However, if the mushroom picker does not have too much great experience or is generally a beginner, then it is better not to “hunt” deer horn mushrooms. Their photographs are available in this article.

These strange mushrooms in the Primorsky Territory are no less popular than “ordinary” mushrooms. Among the Deer horns there are practically no poisonous mushrooms, although a number of them are not tasty and not quite edible mushrooms presented quite widely. Find bright ones in the forest beautiful mushrooms- Deer antlers, or as they are also called Coral mushrooms, are quite simple. Like most tree fungi, staghorn mushrooms prefer rotten wood from fallen trees. By the names it is easy to guess on the wood of which tree this or that mushroom grows.

Although deer antlers taste qualities are approaching the most delicious mushrooms, they are not cultivated, but mushrooms that are less demanding and more productive are grown under artificial conditions.
In the forest, on fallen trees, you can easily pick up bags of mushrooms in a matter of minutes. Deer antlers form whole clusters on the trunks, and the ease of collection makes harvesting these mushrooms simply a pleasure. .

There is a widespread opinion that these mushrooms are not suitable for classical cooking and the recipes for preparing these mushrooms are complex and not varied. This is fundamentally wrong. The author believes deer horns the most convenient mushroom for preparing and preparing dishes.
You can easily get acquainted with my recipes by clicking on the link right under the description of the mushroom.

Antler mushrooms bear fruit already from mid-summer, but it has been noticed that it is in the fall that these mushrooms acquire a truly magnificent taste. I personally like grown reindeer antlers. on fallen old oak trunks, these mushrooms have a pleasant sweetish taste and do not spoil during transportation for quite a long time. Mushrooms grown on linden or poplar are more juicy and fleshy, and deer horns growing on rotting wood of pine and cedar trees are much less tasty; they are not considered medicinal mushrooms and are used in traditional folk medicine as a remedy for worms, hypochondria, and even for rheumatic joint diseases.

Although it is difficult to make a mistake when picking antler mushrooms, always be careful! Most cases of mushroom poisoning occur due to illiteracy and negligence, when an inexperienced mushroom picker takes poisonous mushroom for edible. Sometimes poisoning occurs with ready-made salted, pickled or canned edible mushrooms due to improper preparation or storage. It should be remembered that some edible mushrooms consumed raw (or undersalted or undercooked) can also cause mild poisoning. We should not forget that some people have an individual intolerance to mushrooms.

Kira Stoletova

Deer horn mushroom stands out unusual shape and color among other mushrooms. It got its name because its shape resembles deer antlers or sea corals.

Description of the appearance of the mushroom

The color of the mushroom depends on its growth phase. Young deer antlers are light yellow in color; with age it darkens and becomes bright orange. It does not have the usual mushroom smell.

Irina Selyutina (Biologist):
As a species, the mushroom was described in 1755 by the French botanist Joseph de Tournefort. However, this species received its scientific name - yellow ramaria (Ramaria flava) only 133 years later in 1888 thanks to Lucien Quelet, the founder of the French Mycological Society.
Coral mushrooms, which include this type are considered basidiomycetes. Their spores are formed on the entire surface of the fruiting body, because the spore-bearing layer is located on the outer side.

Ramaria, also known as deer horn, is found on the soil surface and on rotten wood or stumps in all types of forests. You can find fruiting bodies in August-September, with good weather until October. Among the many species, poisonous ones are not found, but there is a division into conditionally edible and edible. It is better to eat only young organisms because older mushrooms have a bitter taste.

Deer antlers are harvested from August to October. They grow in small colonies, making them easy to collect. This type of mushroom also makes delicious first courses.

Types of mushroom

The deer horn mushroom has several similar types:

Horny bunch: It is a white fungus that turns light pink with age. Its branches reach a height of 15-20 cm and a diameter of 10-15 cm.
Coral-shaped clusterweed: its body has thick, thin white branches. The pulp is tender, but becomes tougher with age.
Purple horn: the mushroom is small in size, its body length is 10 cm, diameter is 4-5 cm. There is no pronounced taste or smell.
Rogatik golden yellow: has thick “branches” of light yellow color. Its collection begins in late August-early September.
Rogatik comb: reaches a height of 5 cm. The “branches” have comb-like, sharp tips.

Useful properties

The composition contains amino acids (methionine and tryptophan), as well as lipids, phytoagglutinin and sterol. The mushroom is often used in Chinese medicine for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases and improvement of lung function.

It also has an antitumor effect and strengthens the immune system. Deer antlers are used in cosmetology to slow down the aging process.

The calorie content of the reindeer horn mushroom, or yellow ramaria, is 55 kcal per 100 g of product. Such a high calorie content allows it to be used in the preparation of various dishes. The mushroom is also perfect for a vegetarian menu.

Contraindications

This mushroom, like other types, has certain contraindications. These include:

children under 12 years of age;
pregnancy and lactation period;
chronic gastrointestinal diseases;
individual intolerance (allergy).

You should be careful when collecting because it has inedible counterparts.

Before cooking, they should be thoroughly washed under running water. You should not collect these mushrooms near highways and large industrial enterprises.

Application

This species is often used in folk medicine. Medicines for joints and cleansing the body of helminths (flat, round, tapeworms) are prepared from it.

Irina Selyutina (Biologist):
Ramaria yellow, or deer horns, has found its use in cosmetology. Here it is used for anti-aging procedures. Its use in this area is justified by its ability to retain moisture in the skin epithelium, which is much greater than the same property of glycerin and hyaluronic acid. Its natural polysaccharides deliver useful substances into the deep layers of the skin, and the vitamin D included in the composition becomes an activator of the metabolic process in the skin.

Also used in cooking. The horns are especially suitable for pickling and drying. They make delicious soups and mushroom caviar.

In cooking

Despite the fact that ramaria belongs to taste category 4 due to its characteristic bitterness, young mushrooms are still used in cooking. However, only young specimens and bases are best suited for these purposes, since the “twigs” are bitter.

Fresh deer horns are washed, cut into small pieces and boiled.

Also from this species are obtained delicious sauces and fillings for savory baked goods. The taste of ready-made deer antlers is similar to seafood or boiled chicken. Mushrooms brought from the forest are sorted out, and where required, the lower part of the stem with pieces of turf is cut off. Wash and then boil for 15-30 minutes in salted water. After this, the broth is drained and not used for other dishes.

For mushroom salad take:

boiled mushrooms – 150 g;
carrots – 150 g;
small onion – 1 pc.;
vinegar – 2 tbsp;
sunflower oil – 1 tbsp;
garlic – 2 cloves;
salt, pepper, herbs to taste.

Finely chopped mushrooms are combined with carrots and garlic. Then salt, add pepper and herbs, season with vegetable oil, and let it brew for 30 minutes. At this time, the onion is cut into rings, marinated and mixed with salad.

Especially delicate taste have pickled deer horns. To prepare them you need to take: lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, black pepper and vegetable oil. In appearance, pickled horns resemble corals.

First course recipe:

mushrooms – 400 g;
carrots – 150 g;
potatoes – 400 g;
hard cheese – 150 g;
butter – 50 g;
salt, pepper, herbs to taste.

Boil the mushrooms for 30 minutes, cut into small pieces. Vegetables are also chopped and thrown into the pan.

Add mushrooms, salt, pepper and herbs to the boiled vegetables and leave on low heat for 15 minutes. Then add grated cheese and butter; if desired, add cream or sour cream sauce before use.

In medicine

To combat stomach ulcers, you can prepare a medicinal tincture according to the following recipe:

150 g fresh mushrooms rinse thoroughly, dry and refrigerate for 2 days.
Cut the prepared mushrooms into small pieces and pour in 500 ml of alcohol or high-quality vodka;
Leave to infuse in a dark place for 30 days, then strain. After this, treatment begins.

For ulcers, drink 1 tbsp. l. medication three times a day before meals. The treatment period lasts a month, then take a break for 14 days and repeat the course.

Conclusion

Deer horn mushrooms are one of the most unusual of their kind. They are valued for their exotic shape and pleasant taste. Most often found on stumps and dry trees in coniferous forests.

It is often used in preparing various dishes. This type of mushroom also helps in the treatment of certain diseases. But you should be careful when collecting, they can be confused with false representatives of this “deer horns” group.