Baked Mushrooms with Bread and Cured Pork Cheek

This dish is a real treat in autumn, when pine mushrooms are available; they’re as close as we can get in Australia to the wild porcini found in Sardinia. The porcini season is a big event in Sardinia, with people coming from Rome, Milan, in fact all over Italy, to hunt for Sardinian porcini. It’s important that you don’t wash mushrooms, or they’ll become waterlogged and slimy; just wipe them gently with a damp cloth. This is also good served with meat, or as part of an antipasto – in which