The common puffball tastes great! Easy way to tell whether puffball is ripe enough

Do you love mushrooms and want to find your “big” catch? Of course you do! There are many mushrooms with a unique taste that is incomparable to regular champignons or oyster mushrooms sold in supermarkets. Unfortunately, this year is not great for mushroom hunters. The weather has been rather dry and mushrooms do not like that. But what about puffballs? The are pretty resilient and can deal with dry weather better than other mushrooms. Puffballs are not that popular but here is why you should not skip them when on a mushroom picking trip. However, you need to get the right one. If a puffball is ripe enough you should take it. But how do you know when it is ripe and good for cooking? We shall tell you in the following lines.

Go to grassy forests

Puffballs start appearing in early spring and grow throughout the summer until late autumn. Large types of puffballs are usually found in grass fields outside of forests. The typical types include Handkea utriformis and the giant puffball (Calvatia gigantea). You can find it near nettles because it likes soil rich in nitrogen. Other smaller puffballs often grow in forests on stumps or close to stumps.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

There is no shortage of giant puffballs

Finding a huge puffball in Europe may not be that difficult. Big ones can weight several kilograms and you probably will not need a mushroom basket or a bag. For you information, the largest giant puffball was found in the Liberec region and weighted 20.8 kg and the diameter was 216 cm!.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

How can you tell a ripe puffball?

You can recognize a properly ripe giant puffball easily. It is white and relatively hard. This method works for other puffballs too. If you find a puffball with a little yellowish colour inside, do not take it. If you touch it and it feels soft to the touch, do not take it either.

Photo: Radek Štěpán

Puffball recipes

In terms of preparation, you need to follow specifics rules to make it delicious. Fruiting bodies need to be peeled. If you skip this step you will not be able to get best results. There are many puffball recipes. The most popular is probably breaded and fried giant puffball. You need to do three breaded layers and fry it as a regular meat cutlet. Puffballs with scrambled eggs are excellent and of course the typical pickled puffballs. Best if you pickle them together with other mushrooms.

Photo: Pixabay

Source: lidovky.cz, vlastní zkušenosti autora

Preview photo: Pixabay