How to clean and cook saffron milk cap mushrooms: Ada Parellada's recipe

We arrive home with a basket full of saffron milk cap mushrooms. Now what? The chef Ada Parellada explains how to clean them and how to preserve them.

When they arrive home

• We will store them with soil in the fridge covered with a damp cloth. Never in a plastic bag because they sweat and can rot.
• Better in the fridge than outside because they dry out and, if there are worms, they will keep reproducing.
• We will not clean them until the moment we cook them.
• If we take too long to eat them, it is better to cook them than to keep them raw because they spoil very quickly.

How we clean them

• We fill a bucket with water and submerge them for a moment.
• If we soak them for too long we will drench them with water and they lose their aromas, because they are sponges. They would also need more time to cook and the aromas would also evaporate.
• Once rinsed, we lightly scrape the edges to remove the pine needles, leaves, and adhering dirt. We place them on a paper towel or a dry cloth so that they drain the washing water.
• For those who believe that mushrooms should never be submerged in water because they get watery, remind them that a mushroom is 80% water and a little more water will not do them any harm. And that in any case the worst thing is biting into sand…
• We cut the base to see if they are rotten. We will cut the rotten ones in half and clean them.
• If any worm remains, we must know that these worms have only eaten mushrooms…

How to cook them

Ingredients

• 500 g of saffron milk cap mushrooms, better if small
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 150 ml of oil
• A small bunch of parsley
• Salt

The step-by-step recipe

• We mince the garlic and cook it over low heat with the oil. When it begins to change color, we add the saffron milk cap mushrooms with the cap facing the pan. We cook over medium heat for about five minutes. We keep basting them with the very hot oil.
• We lower the heat to a minimum and cover it for a couple of minutes. This way, the saffron milk cap mushrooms will cook completely in their own steam and will release some of their water.
• Uncover, add salt, add the chopped parsley and cook over medium-high heat for 2 minutes without stopping the shaking so that the oil emulsifies.
• We remove the saffron milk cap mushrooms to the plate and continue shaking the pan to manage to bind the oil.
• Sauté the saffron milk cap mushrooms with the very hot oil.