Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Wild Food guide to Orange Birch Bolete along with all the Orange Birch Bolete containing recipes presented on this site, with 43 recipes in total.

These recipes, all contain Orange Birch Bolete as a major wild food ingredient.

Orange Birch Bolete, Leccinum scabrum (formerly Boletus luridiformis and previously known as Boletus badia and Xerocomus badius) is frequently a very large species with a highly variable cap colour that can be dark chocolate brown, pale brown or even, as in this fine specimen, coppery bronze. The cap flesh is yellow, rapidly bluing when cut or bruised. Orange at first, the round, crowded pores soon become bright red and then rusty brown with age. The spore tubes are lemon yellow, but they very quickly turn blue-green when cut or bruised. The pores are initially yellow when young and rusty with age (lending it the name 'scarletina bolete'); these bruise blue to black. The tubes are yellowish-green and become blue quickly on cutting.

This mild-flavoured species is said to be edible after being well cooked, although some people are adversely affected by it. When raw or insufficiently cooked it can cause gastroenteritis, for this same reason it is not recommended for drying. Caution is advised as it resembles other potentially hazardous blue-staining boletes and should thus be avoided by novice mushroom hunters. It is, however, commonly collected in several European countries. In Sweden it's appreciated as the base for mushroom soups.

Genetic analysis published in 2013 showed that B. luridiformis and many (but not all) red-pored boletes were part of a dupainii clade (named for Boletus dupainii), well-removed from the core group of Boletus edulis and relatives within the Boletineae. This indicated that it needed to be placed in a new genus. It became the type species of the new genus Neoboletus in 2014.

The Orange Birch Bolete is edible when firm. It is a very common Autumn mushroom and though not as firm and tasty as the best boletes, it's still OK mixed with other mushrooms. Because it’s a very common mushroom it can really help to bulk your basket and it’s a really easy one for beginners.

Possible confusion: The Lurid Bolete (Suillellus luridus) can look similar but has a red mesh on the stem, unlike the red dots on the Scarletina. Most toxic Boletes will have a mesh pattern on the stem rather than dots. n particular the Devil’s Bolete (Rubroboletus satanas) is a really toxic species, but again it’s possible to tell the two apart by the spots of red on the stem of the Scarletina while the Devils Bolete has a red mesh. Also the cap of the Devil’s Bolete being a chalky white but this is less reliable as the cap can fade on older Scarletina Boletes. Suillellus satanas has a chalky white cap and a bulbous stem covered in a bright red net pattern on a yellow background; it is poisonous. Deceiving bolete (Suillellus queletii) also has dots on the stem but they’re yellow to buff/grey and not red. When cut in cross section it also turns blue but the flesh at the base of the stem should have a vinaceous red colour. Confusing the two would be a harmless mistake as both are edible after cooking and very good. The Neoboletus group has a second species, currently named Neoboletus xanthopus, that is extremely similar to the Scarletina Bolete and impossible to differentiate without a DNA analysis. Thankfully this second species is equally edible.

For other edible mushrooms, see the guide to edible mushrooms

References:

[1]. David Evans Notes from field observations, tastings and cookery experiments.
[2]. Huxley, A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1999
[3]. Tanaka, T. Tanaka's Cyclopaedia of Edible Plants of the World.
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(Note that the above book links are Amazon Affiliate links)