Oyster mushrooms (mushrooms): useful properties of oyster mushrooms

There are several types of oyster mushrooms: common oyster mushrooms (ash-gray or dark brown cap), late (autumn) oyster mushrooms (olive-brown cap), horn-shaped oyster mushrooms (ochre, brown or fawn cap), lung oyster mushrooms (cream cap). Nevertheless, the general characteristics of oyster mushrooms can be reduced to the following: the cap is most often one-sided, with curved wavy edges, the color varies from almost white to yellow-brown; the plates inside the cap are white, running down on the stem; the leg is white, dense, short, sometimes even absent; the flesh is fibrous, dense (in old mushrooms, slightly rubbery), has a pleasant flour smell.

Young oyster mushrooms are used in cooking for frying, stewing and cooking, old ones are suitable mainly for cooking, more precisely, for obtaining mushroom broth. Oyster mushrooms are not suitable for drying, salting and pickling.