A Trifle for a Truffle

One of the things I love about any Sunday in Tuscany is that it usually means the entire day will revolve around lunch!

When the weather is nice, this may mean a barbecue in a backyard overlooking the rolling Tuscan hills, or an excursion to some family-run restaurant nestled amongst them. Today, Sunday means lunch at the home of some of our friends.

Italians are not so good at precision timing, so lunch is at the exact hour of approximately whenever everyone arrives!

There are six of us today. The hosts, Sara and Giuliano, have laid the table and prepared a feast.

Niccò and Giulia arrive with some very special treats - Niccò's father is a truffle hunter, or tartufaio, and so we are given some of these precious treats to take home! There are some arguments over how to best store truffles. One theory is to keep them in an airtight container filled with rice. This however, can apparently dry the truffles out. The other suggested preservation method is to wrap them in kitchen toweling and keep them in a jar.

However, Niccò has the ultimate idea in how to prevent the precious truffle from going off - invite all your friends around and eat the truffles immediately! A toast is made to Niccò's genius.

Niccò and Giulia live next door to a vineyard where their neighbour produces wine, so they also bring along a 3 litre glass bottle filled with the newly released Chianti. It is a light blend perfect for drinking with antipasti (starters) and pasta dishes.

Our contribution to the lunch is a bottle of Brunello, the big-daddy of Tuscan wines, which will be perfect with the main meal of wild boar which Giuliano's father hunted himself! We also bought along a simple fruit tart made, of course, from fruits from the garden, to be served with some roasted chestnuts which were given to us by yet another friend who grows them on his farm.

Sara made a simple but delicious pasta dish that is only eaten during truffle season. Simply, it is pasta coated in butter and served with shaved truffles. The wild boar stew was served with roast potatoes (and the Brunello!), and the dessert was perfectly followed by a vin santo liqueur.

To prepare the chestnuts, it is best to use an open flame, but since this was not at hand, we sliced open the tops of the chestnuts and put them on an oven tray to roast for approximately 20 minutes. It is important to open the shells, as if they are placed whole in the oven, the air pressure inside the nuts will cause them to explode! There is no better way than to eat a chestnut than when they are freshly picked, and roasted so as they burn your fingertips when you try to peel off the furry shell!

When the last fork in action was finally laid to rest, it was near on 4pm. As we had one last coffee, conversation had already begun to revolve around plans for dinner!

Truffle recipes, truffle season, history

In the Italian language, if a less-than-beautiful person needs to be described, the polite response is, 'è un tipo' (literally, 'he's a type'). With truffles, however, there is no need for polite terms - you can honestly say they are possibly one of the ugliest foods you can ever hope to see, and yet still hope to have the good fortune to eat them!

Whilst they may look 'interesting', the taste is unique. Truffle creams and oils can be substituted for when the real deal cannot be found, but there is nothing quite like a fresh truffle given to you by a local, or better yet, found on your very own truffle hunting expedition!

Truffles grow only under specific tree varieties - oaks, willows, cherry, lime and poplar trees. They do not, as was once believed, hail from lightening bolts which strike close to the trees!

Historically, pigs were used to search for the truffles. However, in recent centuries, they have been replaced by the use of dogs. The theories on why the truffle hunter, or trifolao, began preferring the dogs include that the dogs have more energy and therefore tire less, they are easier to transport to the truffle hunting regions (not to mention, easier to take into a coffee shop after the search!), and most importantly, the dogs are less likely to eat their finds.

Despite this, it is only in Italy and France where the hunting dogs are utilised - in the few other truffle-producing countries (including Spain and New Zealand), pigs or other animals are still utilised.

There are several different kinds of Truffle:

• Black Truffle
• The Black and Smooth black truffle
• White Truffle
• The Whitish Truffle
• The Summer Truffle
• The Bagnoli Truffle

Truffle Recipes

Due to the rarity of truffles, and also their intense flavour, they are used sparingly in recipes. The most simple way to use your truffle is with butter and pasta. White truffles are most commonly served raw with pasta and even in salads, such as in the following recipe.

• Pasta con Tartufo
• Truffle pasta
• 1 small truffle
• Butter
• Pasta (fresh or store-bought)

Clean the truffle with a fine toothbrush in order to remove all surface dirt. Some people prefer to very closely peel the truffle, but this entails a lot of wastage and is not recommended. Cook the pasta in salted boiling water. Strain and coat with a generous amount of butter. Over the top of the pasta, shave the truffle. Serve hot.

Both the black and the white truffles are well paired with roasting meats and stuffing, in patè, and to add a distinctive flavour to simple dishes such as gnocchi or other potato recipes, such as the delicious and surprisingly simple Potato and Truffle Flan:

Flan di Patate e Tartufo
Potato and Truffle Flan

• 800 g potatoes
• ½ L liquid cream
• 4 eggs and 4 yolks
• 150 g grated Parmesan
• 8 tbs of olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 small black truffles

Preheat oven to 160°C. Shave the truffles. Peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes, add to saucepan with the olive oil, cover and cook for around 15 minutes. When they are cooked, pass the potatoes through a potato masher or better a food mill ('passatutto'). Add all ingredients apart from the truffles and mix well with a mixer/food processor until you have a creamy consistency. Then add the shaved truffles. Butter well a mould (ring moulds are nice for this flan) or make smaller individual portions. Fill ¾ full and cook in a 'bain-marie' for 40 minutes in a moderate oven. You can easily do this by taking a roasting tray then placing the small moulds (even the disposable aluminium ones are great for this purpose) evenly, then filling with water to about two-thirds full. The creates the correct environment in the oven to cook them properly without them getting too dry. Serves 4.