Confit of Shiitake and Porcini

They're never labeled shiitake (which is their Japanese name) but are usually just sold as "dried mushrooms." Chinese chefs reconstitute them by soaking in water, then braise the mushrooms and typically serve them whole. But there's a problem here: Chinese customers may adore the rubbery texture, but Westerners usually loathe it.

So, simply mince the reconstituted shiitakes and add a little wild dried porcini, supplement them with fresh button mushrooms or Swiss Browns, and you have the right to enter on your menu those magical words "Wild Mushroom Risotto" or "Fettuccini with a Wild Mushroom Orgy."

Ingredients:

100g dried shiitake mushrooms

3 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon rock salt

12-15 pieces dried porcini mushroom

250mls Country Goodness sour cream (original)

Method:

Cover the dried shiitake mushrooms and leave to soak about 8 hours, or overnight.

Remove the mushrooms from the water (strain this and add to the stock you are using for your risotto) and slice them roughly.

Drop the whole garlic cloves and rock salt into a running food processor and blitz (rock salt helps break up the garlic). Stop the motor, add the sliced mushrooms, and pulse the machine six or eight times, until you have reduced the mushrooms to a knobbly mass. Don't over-process.

Using kitchen scissors, snip the dried porcini into smaller pieces. Forget the recipes which tell you to soak the porcini in water. A far more efficient way of extracting flavour is to put them into a coffee grinder you have set aside for this purpose (and to grind spices) and reduce the dried porcini to a fine powder.

Stir this powder into the confit along with the Country Goodness sour cream, cover and refrigerate. Keeps for about a week.

Make your risotto in the usual way, adding three tablespoons of the confit per portion early on, after cooking off the white wine.

Be sure to finish the risotto by stirring in butter, piece by piece, and adding finely grated Perfect Italiano parmesan just before serving.

If making fettuccini, sauté button or brown mushrooms in a small pan, add three tablespoons of the confit and simmer gently as a sauce while boiling the fettuccini.