Risotto, with mushrooms, cep roasted chicken, and summer truffle

Risotto, with mushrooms,
cep roasted chicken, and summer truffle

There are a thousand different ways to make risotto, but how do you make risotto memorable?  In the last twenty years there are four that I can recount in vivid detail:

• In Lucca, we had an amazing barolo risotto with gorgonzola - umami heaven - salty, blue notes, rich, dense, it was utterly heavenly.

Roasted Salmon in African Volcano PeriPeri Sauce

I've been eating for two weeks... This may seem like a bit of a dream for some people, but my palate is jaded, I needed something much more comforting and zingy.  I've also been up since 4am this morning, and I'm definitely not in the mood for one of my elaborate cookery sessions - so it has to be fast!

Michel Roux Jr's Iced Red Berry Soufflé

Continuing with my soufflé obsession, here we have an iced soufflé.  Unlike a chilled soufflé which uses gelatine to stabilise the dish, a frozen soufflé can be much lighter because it's obviously frozen.  The obvious drawback in the average kitchen, I would suggest, is that you need enough free shelf space to sit the dishes for 12 hours.

On the plus side, you can make it in advance, and can actually use up those bags of frozen fruit we all seem to have in our freezer.  Use the space you free up to set the soufflés!  The perfect summer dinner party dish, if we ever get enough sun to truly call it summer...