Red-leafed chicory rice served on pecorino cheese slab with layer of cardoncelli mushrooms
The risotto with cardoncelli mushrooms is a fall first course made with the king of mushrooms: the delicate cardoncello. I made a blunder ones: I had just tried to melt down some pecorino cheese into a mould to get a nice shape to be used as a container for the rice but unfortunately it crumbled off. I should have used the grana padano for that purpose. To get a proper cheese basket you really need the right amount of fat in it. Nevertheless an idea came to my mind: keeping the cheese flat as a slab and using it as a base for something warm to make it melt a bit. Having some cardoncelli mushrooms at my disposal the line was taken, I had only to focus on the colours to make it work.