Content
Cooking a truffle at home is easy. Most often it is used fresh as a seasoning for dishes. Sometimes baked, added to pastes and sauces. Any dish with a truffle aroma is considered a delicacy among sophisticated connoisseurs of mushroom cuisine.
What is truffle in cooking
The aristocrats of Ancient Rome and Egypt learned how to cook truffles. Rare mushrooms have always been very expensive, the Romans brought them home from Western Asia and North Africa, not suspecting that they grow underfoot. In the European forests of Italy and France, these mushrooms were found only in the late Middle Ages. Various recipes for the preparation of truffles are carefully preserved by the culinary experts of these countries to this day.
White truffles are the most expensive mushrooms in the world. In Italy they are searched for in the woods with dogs. People who have a special license that allow them to engage in a profitable business go on a quiet hunt. Trained dogs help find valuable mushrooms growing underground. Truffles have a very strong smell that is difficult to describe. Some foodies say it resembles the smell of a damp cellar mixed with exquisite spices. Dogs, having found a mushroom, begin to dig the ground, a person also continues this delicate work so that animals do not damage the valuable find.
The larger the white truffle is found, the higher its price per gram. The mushroom harvest is brought to the annual fair in the Italian city of Alba. There, when you look at the price tags, the speechlessness disappears, a mushroom delicacy is sold for 400 euros per 100 g.
Where the truffle is added
Truffle is added to all kinds of dishes. Most often it is prepared with Italian pasta and additional ingredients such as cheese, meat or seafood. White truffle is added to fresh meat dishes and vegetables. Black is cooked with omelets, pizza and rice, and is also baked with cheese, meat products or vegetables.
How to eat truffle
This is not a mushroom in the usual sense, which is cooked over a fire, fried or boiled. It is used fresh as a spice to give dishes a special aroma and taste. The truffle smell is very strong, but not everyone likes it. How a truffle mushroom is, and recipes with its addition, Western gourmets know for sure. In Russia, after the revolution, the traditions of using this delicacy were lost, although the mushrooms themselves can be found in the forests near Moscow, the Crimea and other parts of the country.
And gourmets from all the surrounding regions of France, Switzerland and other Italian cities flock to the annual truffle fair in the Italian city of Alba. They strive to buy truffles to decorate their food with. On sale at the fair, in addition to white, there is also a black look, which is slightly cheaper. It undergoes cooking while retaining its specific flavor. Therefore, all jars with mushrooms in oil are prepared from it.
What is truffle eaten with
The most expensive truffles in the world are eaten with various dishes - Italian pasta, grilled meat, boiled rice, stewed vegetables, cheese, etc.
The truffle aroma is reminiscent of a damp cellar, a crust of old cheese and roasted nuts. He punches in the nose, which from habit may not seem very pleasant. But gourmets find pleasure and special benefits for the body in it; a valuable mushroom is considered a good aphrodisiac.
How to cook a mushroom truffle at home
Truffles, affordable for ordinary citizens, are prepared by adding various sauces to omelets. They are baked, stewed, fried in butter, cut into thin slices. Fresh mushroom truffles can be cooked on their own for the winter by filling with calcined vegetable oil. The duration of heat treatment is short - a few seconds or minutes. Truffle paste and oil are commercially available, and they are also used as a flavoring additive to various side dishes.
Most popular truffle dishes
The easiest recipes to use in recipes are black truffle paste, such as in the photo, and its oil. These dressings give the ready meals an exceptional truffle flavor and are not very expensive.
Pasta with truffle dressing
Foods for two servings:
- hot pepper - 1 pc.;
- garlic - 1 clove;
- a small bunch of parsley - 1 pc.;
- cherry tomatoes - 5-6 pcs.;
- Parmesan cheese - 100 g;
- olive oil - 2 tablespoons l .;
- spaghetti - 100 g;
- black truffle puree - 50 g.
Cooking description:
- Hot peppers are cleaned of seeds, cut into small pieces.
- Put a pot of water on the fire.
- Chop a clove of garlic, parsley.
- The cheese is grated.
- Olive oil is poured into a frying pan, garlic, parsley and hot peppers are sent to it.
- Spaghetti is placed in boiling water, boiled until half cooked, thrown into a colander.
- Cherry tomatoes are cut in half and added to the pan with garlic and parsley. They should brown well.
- Add truffle puree to vegetables and spices in a frying pan, mix and pour boiling water.
- Spaghetti is placed in a frying pan, cooked in aromatic truffle sauce for 5-10 minutes. Then leave for 2-3 minutes so that they absorb water.
- Turn off the heat, and add cheese to the pan. Mix everything a little. No other spices are needed to maintain the truffle aroma.
Put the finished pasta on plates.
Omelet with truffle shavings
Products:
- eggs - 5 pcs.;
- black truffles - 20 g;
- butter - 50 g;
- salt and ground white pepper - as needed.
Preparation:
- Beat eggs with a whisk without separating the yolks from the whites.
- Cut the mushroom into thin slices in the form of shavings, add to the egg mass.
- The pan is heated, the butter is melted, not allowing it to heat up.
- Putting the spices, pour the egg mass into a frying pan.
- When the omelet is baked around the edges, gently turn it over with a spatula to the other side. It is not worth overfrying the dish, its surface should remain tender and light rosy. The total cooking time is about one minute.
Rice with porcini mushrooms, chicken fillet and truffles
Products:
- chicken breast - 300 g;
- small black truffles - 2 pcs.;
- carrots - 1 pc.;
- small porcini mushrooms - 500 g;
- lemon juice - 2 ml;
- flour - 2 tbsp. l .;
- egg yolk - 2 pcs.;
- salt - as needed;
- leek - 1 pc .;
- bay leaf - 1 pc .;
- rice (long grain) - 500 g;
- butter - 125 g;
- olive oil - 40 ml;
- milk - 450 ml.
Preparation:
- Cut the washed leeks lengthwise, peel and chop the carrots.
- The truffles are cut into thin slices, and the porcini mushrooms are washed and peeled from the caps. Rice is washed well.
- Fillet with carrots and bay leaves are poured with cold water, boiled until cooked for about 20 minutes. Then the meat is cooled and cut into small pieces.
- The rice is dipped in boiling unsalted water and cooked for 15 minutes, until it becomes soft. Transfer the finished cereal into a colander and rinse well under cold water.
- Porcini mushrooms are cut into slices, put in a saucepan with 1 tbsp. l. butter, lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Cook over low heat for five minutes.
- Make bechamel sauce. Mixing 25 g of butter with olive oil, fry the flour on it for two minutes. Pour milk and 1 tbsp. chicken broth in which the fillet was cooked. Salted, cook on fire for 10 minutes. with constant stirring.
- Porcini mushrooms are added to the béchamel sauce, along with the oil and juice they have isolated, as well as thinly chopped truffles and fillet pieces.
- Beat the yolks with a little sauce, add to the pan to the chicken and forest fruits. Remove from fire.
- In a bowl, melt the remaining butter, put the cooked rice there and, stirring with a wooden spatula, heat it up, salt to taste.
- Put the rice in a round shape, turn it over onto a serving plate, and put a warm béchamel sauce with chicken and forest fruits on top.
Pizza with white and black truffles
Products:
- flour - 400 g;
- mineral water - 200 ml;
- fresh yeast - 6 g;
- vegetable oil - 30 ml;
- sugar - 8 g;
- fatty cream - 20 g;
- truffle oil - 6 ml;
- white truffles - 20 g;
- black truffle paste - 150 g;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- mozzarella - 300 g.
Description of the cooking process:
- Yeast, sugar and 2 tbsp are bred in mineral water. l flour. Allow to stand for 10-15 minutes.
- The risen yeast is added to the flour, and the dough is prepared, kneading until smooth, flavored with vegetable oil.
- Cover the dough ball with a towel, let stand for half an hour. Then it is divided into portions of 150 g and left for another hour.
- A circle with a diameter of 30-35 cm is rolled out of one piece of dough, a sauce of cream, garlic and truffle paste is placed on it, the pieces of mozzarella are evenly distributed over the surface.
- The pizza is cooked in an oven at 350 ° C. The baked goods are seasoned with truffle oil and white truffle shavings.
Beef tenderloin with truffles and foie gras
Products:
- butter - 20 g;
- foie gras - 80 g;
- beef tenderloin - 600 g;
- demi-glace sauce (or strong meat broth) - 40 g;
- small tomatoes - 40 g;
- fat cream - 40 ml;
- dry white wine - 20 ml;
- black truffle paste - 80 g;
- black truffle - 10 g;
- arugula - 30 g;
- truffle oil - 10 ml.
Process description:
- Beef steaks are prepared, cut into slices, 2 cm thick. For frying, use a grill pan. The meat is preliminarily greased with butter and wrapped in parchment.
- Thin slices of truffle are lightly browned in a frying pan in butter. Add ready-made meat, wine and a little water to it, stew for several minutes.
- Then put the sauce, truffle paste, cream and a little water into a frying pan for beef, pepper, salt to taste.
- The goose liver is cut into two layers 20-30 ml thick, breaded in flour, fried in a grill pan through parchment for two minutes.
Collect the finished dish on a plate: put a beef steak in the center, pour sauce over it, put foie gras and truffle plates on top. Decorate everything with arugula leaves and flowers from slices of cherry tomatoes, pour over with truffle oil.
Conclusion
Cooking a truffle at home is an interesting and exciting experience. You can experiment with the flavors and smells of spices combined with a truffle aroma. True connoisseurs of these expensive mushrooms claim that they are of great benefit to the body, and therefore have a high price.
