Edible Mushroom Preservation Methods and Key Points for Processing Health Dried Noodles

The health dried noodle series with edible mushrooms includes: lion's mane mushroom dried noodles, button mushroom dried noodles, oyster mushroom dried noodles, Indian bread dried noodles, reishi mushroom dried noodles, and others. They are all made by adding one or more edible mushroom ingredients to ordinary dried noodles, and the processing methods are largely similar. Their outstanding features are delicious flavor, appetite enhancement, high nutritional value, and dietary therapeutic effects. However, after the mushroom bodies are dehydrated and crushed, they mostly appear as loose powder and lack viscosity, making them prone to cracking and breaking during the production process, which brings certain difficulties to dried noodle processing. Through repeated practical trials, the author explored a special process of "low temperature, shade drying," which is suitable for processing dried noodles with various types of mushrooms. Taking lion's mane mushroom dried noodles as an example, the key processing points are briefly introduced as follows:

1. Raw material formula and product standards: 100 kg strong flour, 2 kg lion's mane mushroom powder (or 20 kg lion's mane mushroom juice), 0.5 kg white Indian bread powder, 1 kg edible refined salt. The dried noodles are 0.8 mm thick, 1 mm wide, 20 cm long, with a moisture content of 14% plus or minus 0.5%.

2. Mixing dough: According to the formula, mix the lion's mane mushroom powder and Indian bread powder into the flour, add 26% filtered salt water or mushroom cooking water, and stir in a mixer for 10 minutes so that the flour fully absorbs water and expands, bonding with one another to form a gluten network. The well-aged dough blank has a certain extensibility, and is placed in an environment of 25 plus or minus 2 degrees C for 15 minutes, then put on the machine for sheeting.

3. Sheeting: The aged dough material must undergo several passes of double-roller rolling to form sheets, striving for uniform distribution of the gluten network; then use a noodle slitting machine to cut the sheets into 1 mm noodles, and finally hang them on racks for shade drying.

4. Shade drying: The relative air humidity of the shade drying room is 70% to 80%, and the room temperature is controlled at 15 to 20 degrees C. The noodles are slowly dried through a certain amount of air flow. Prevent the room temperature from being too high, otherwise the noodles will develop micro-cracks and become brittle. The shade drying time is about 8 hours.