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Salad made with porcini mushrooms "ovolini" with lemon sauce

(Insalatina cruda di porcini "ovolini" in salsetta al limone)

300 grams of small boletus mushrooms
very fresh, peeled, quickly washed and immediately dried, cut in very thin slices
the yolk of one boiled egg
the yolk of one raw egg
some skin of one lemon
the small leaves of 3 or 4 branches of calamint (nepitella)
¼ of a tube of anchovy paste
one garlic clove
olive oil
salt and pepper

Put the slices of mushrooms in a small bowl. Take a blender and put the yolks of the two eggs (one boiled and one uncooked), the lemon, that means the skin and the juice, the calamint, garlic and one pinch of salt and pepper. Mix very well, being very patient because these small amounts make the operation quite difficult: when this stuff will be well smooth and homogeneous, add firstly the anchovy paste and then the needed olive oil in order to obtain a light mixture.
Then use this kind of sauce to season the slices of mushrooms in the small bowl and after 30 minutes of marinating, serve them like a cold hors d'oeuvre.

This recipe is particularly indicated for royal agaric mushrooms, but it results delicious also with boletus mushrooms. But both the royal agaric and the boletus mushrooms should be small and just picked in order to take advantage of all the fragrances of earth, wood and undergrowth, all these features make them indescribable: they should be tasted and that's all; with good peace of the "gastrolati", the speeches leave the "fungo che trovano e…a bocca asciutta".

A Giuseppe Alessi recipe
Translated by Gianna Toni
Picture by Kee-Ho Casati