Forest Mushroom and Coppa Risotto

A beautiful risotto full of autumn flavours

Ingredients

1 cup of Arborio rice
½ litre of Chicken or Vegetable stock
½ cup of Dried Porcini Mushrooms
1 cup of sliced Swiss Brown mushrooms
1 tbsp of thickened cream
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 large French shallots, finely chopped
2 slices of Coppa, cut into stripes
10g of butter
a few sprigs of lemon thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

First you will need to rehydrate the dried Porcini. Put the dried mushrooms in a small bowl and cover them up with boiling water. The mushrooms may take about ½ hour to rehydrate.

Do not discard the water of the mushrooms as it can be used in the risotto. Take the rehydrated porcini and squeeze them in your hands. Then slice them finely.

In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the garlic and shallots. The shallots must not turn brown.

Add the rice to the garlic and shallots. Cook the rice until it becomes translucent.

Add one ladleful of the boiling stock to the rice. Stir the risotto constantly until most of the stock has been absorbed by the rice.

Then add another ladleful of stock and let to simmer gently until most of the stock has been absorbed. At this stage you can add a few springs of lemon thyme as well as the water left over from step one.

Continue adding the boiling stock one ladleful at the time until the rice is tender but still creamy. Do not add all the stock at once.

While the rice is cooking, cook the sliced porcini in a frying pan with the sliced Swiss Brown Mushrooms in a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the mushrooms until tender.

When the rice is cooked, remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the Coppa, the mushrooms and the cream.

Season to taste with the salt and pepper. You can serve the risotto with some freshly grated parmesan cheese.