Truffle part II

Continuing my series on truffles, I will embark on a kind of truffle critique. And it may well seem odd that someone who plans on selling truffle products at high prices would criticize them. After all, are they not black gold? Incredibly delicious? Well?

Truffles can be wonderful, and they can be uninteresting at best, depending on how you use them. I wish therefore that my future customers are best able to apply a good truffle oil or mustard so that they feel they are getting their money's worth and come back!

Let me give you an example of a meal I had at the Maison de la Truffe in Paris, in place de la Madeleine (8th arrondissement). This is a little shop in a very exclusive district, which looks very simple, white and black interior, with a standard refridgerated counter. What is remarkable is the contents: truffles, black and white surround the entire place with their aroma. In the rest of the shop is a little café, with tables squeezed together so tight you can hardly move.

They had a "Truffle menu" which I simply had to try, despite its €€60 price tag (for lunch!). I figured if anyone could show me what truffles could do, it was here. I started off with something very simple: a truffle and maché salad: a small, sweet and delicate sort of lettuce topped with thin black truffle slices and a mild dressing with some truffle oil. Raw, truffles have a somewhat firmer texture than champignon mushrooms, but not quite crunchy. Their flavor is rich but not strong, slightly nutty. It was an almost perfect salad combination. But I was left wanting slightly, not having experienced that explosion of flavor and aroma I was expecting.

The next course was quail (vaktel for you Norwegians out there -- you know who you are) stuffed with a kind of forcemeat and truffle stuffing. The quail was small and delicate, and the stuffing complemented it well. But again, even more markedly here, there was a lack of distinct truffle flavor or aroma. I could see black specs in the stuffing, and I suspect that added to the overall flavor with went nicely with the gamey medium-dark meat of the quail. But worth it?

Dessert was a chocolate cake with a custard sauce with black specks, which I optimistically mistook for truffle pieces, but which were no more than vanilla seeds...

I have enjoyed truffle most in omelettes, and recently in pasta (at Baltazar Enoteca). Common to these methods is that they are based on simple and relatively taste-neutral food where the truffle can freely distribute its aroma. When adding truffle to more complicated dishes, like stuffings or sauces, the distinct taste disappears, although the contribution can be good. In making a simplified Sauce Périgueux I reduced stock and wine for about an hour until I had a concentrated and worthwhile sauce. But then I added a little chopped truffle, and it converted the sauce completely. It didn't taste like truffle per se, but was darker, more full-bodied and had more layers of complexity. The recipe follows at the end of this article. Once can also stuff chicken or turkey breasts with truffle, or insert truffle slices under the breast skin of a whole roast bird. Sometimes this adds something, other times the truffles get drowned out in other flavors. Considering the price, it is not always worthwhile.

This symbolizes I think a major difference between French and Italian cooking. While the Italians like to keep things simple, letting the main ingredients shine, the French like to combine elements to make a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Which is better is a matter of taste.

Then there is the question of quantity. Some say you can't see the point of truffles unless you eat a lot of them. It is a valid point that truffles are so expensive that even in fancy restaurants you only get paper-thin slices. I have eaten a whole (small) truffle stewed in white wine, an interesting experience, but I have yet to eat a big roast truffle or a whole bunch as a vegetable.

Finally, I can recommend good truffle flavorings. The easiest are truffle oils, although the quality of these vary a bit and one should use them sparingly (a few drops are often enough). They impart truffle flavor in mashed potatoes, rice, or in a sauce. One evening I was cooking for a dinner party and overcooked my potatoes, so I mashed them and added a few drops of truffle oil -- and that was the hit of the evening! You can also use truffle oil in omelettes or eggs, but I would use caution here, as they can get oily, and the imperfections of the oil flavor show better. Use rather some truffle bits in a little jar. Truffle mustard is great anywhere you use mustard: on meats, bread, salad dressings, and is utterly fabulous spread on top of a big juicy rare steak! Sarrazac is still working on the best truffle product source, although we will be featuring some oils and mustards from the start of business.

So now for the patient, here are a couple of recipes.

Truffel omelette

• Beat up some eggs, 3 per person, lightly in a glass or steel bowl
• Add some chopped truffle, either fresh, in slices, or from a jar in little bits. Make sure to add all the juice if you get it from a jar.
• Let this mix at room temperature for about an hour (30 minutes if you are pressed)
• Add some sea salt and pepper and give a final stir
• Heat up some butter in a small pan til it is medium hot, then add the eggs.
• "Make an omelette in the usual way" i.e., give it a little stir, then let it set while you tilt the pan, lifting the edges of the eggs so that some liquid gets underneath. After it begins to set, leave it alone for a while til it is still a little runny on top. Don't let it all get cooked through!
• Eat immediately with a good salad with walnut oil dressing, country bread and a glass of decent but slightly rough wine (like a Bergerac or Cahors).

Sauce Périgueux
This is Curnonsky's simplified version of Escoffier's famous haute cuisine sauce from The Traditional Recipes of the Provinces of France. It's good with chicken or beef, and if you have some leftover you can mix it with plain tomato sauce and reduce, and serve with pasta, yum!

• Get out two separate pans to prepare different elements of the sauce.
• In one pan, add some goose fat, let it heat slightly, and sauté 3 chopped shallots until they are pale yellow.
• Add 1,5 dl of white wine (dry or sweet, like Monbazillac).
  
• Warm up 4 tbs of brandy and add to the the wine and light.
  
• In the other pan, add more goose fat, and sauté 1 sliced yellow onion until it has a little color, do not caramelize
• Add 1 tbs flour to the yellow onions and simmer for 2 minutes, keeping the heat low. Add warm stock (chicken or veal).
• Now mix together the two sauces and simmer very slowly for 2 hours. Stir often.
• Finally, strain the sauce, and add sliced truffles and simmer for 5 minutes on low heat (do not boil).