Truffles: a silver lining for home cooks

There’s nothing quite like a truffle — and due to the softening of demand from restaurants, they’re more affordable than ever.

Keep it simple: tagliatelle al tartufo

Let’s try for a glass half full this week, shall we? Let’s think about the good things that have come out of the endless lockdowns. No sharing public transport with snotty-nosed children and other questionable commuters; valid excuses for avoiding family obligations; more time for exercising the dog. And cheaper truffles.

OK, nobody’s giving them away on street corners, but the softening of demand from the “food service sector” – you know, those places we used to go on Friday nights for a meal and a chat – has meant Australia’s truffles are just a little more affordable this year.

By dint of the ever-maturing state of our trufferies, those “orchards” where people plant pre-inoculated oaks and hazelnuts and wait with fingers crossed, more product is coming onto the market from older trees. Combined with withering demand from Aussie chefs, there’s never been a better time to buy the little black nuggets. At the tail end of the season, you can get truffle at $2.50 a gram; I remember when it was $3 and the sniffer dogs couldn’t keep up.

Now, I’ve been to a lot of fancy truffle dinners in my time. But I can’t help but feel the essence of the fungi, if you will pardon the pun, is sometimes lost on these occasions. Truffles make a pretty good case for simplicity as the best policy.

Gavin Booth, who grows and sells truffles in Manjimup, WA, the powerhouse of the Australian truffle industry, says his favourite way to use them right now is to create a little à la minute truffle oil at the table for dipping good bread. He takes a stoneware plate with some kind of lip around the side, gets it very hot in the oven, and then brings it to the table, adds good quality salt, neutral flavoured olive oil, grated truffle and then a bit more sea salt. He then lets it steep… when you can touch the plate, your truffle oil is ready. Nice.

But when you have just a single truffle on your hands – Booth sold one to me at a very fair price – you’ll want to use the thing carefully, and make it into an occasion.

I favour the classics: with butter under the skin of a chicken that lived a good life; with quality eggs subtly scrambled; or with a good egg pasta. My $50 truffle this season could only be one dish.

The basis for my egg pasta with black truffle is the recipe in my Eataly cookbook; look for tagliatelle al tartufo at eataly.com/magazine (and for the record, the creepy Mario Batali is no longer associated with the global chain of food stores and restaurants – a PR hump they deserve to get over. Eataly is marvellous.)

Start with your tagliatelle: recipes are as ubiquitous as opinions on football, but this is failsafe: 300g of semolina flour, 100g of tipo 00 soft wheat flour, two whole 60g eggs, eight yolks (same size), a good pinch of salt and a splash of good extra-virgin olive oil. There’s a lot of protein in this batch. Now, semolina flour isn’t always available; semolina is. In that case, buy it and whizz it like crazy in your blender on the “mill” setting. Hey presto.

It’s very romantic to make pasta the old-fashioned way, creating a well in the middle of your flour etcetera; personally, I dump it all in the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook and give it about five minutes at slow speed. It’s then just a matter of kneading the dough vigorously for at least five minutes; you’re looking for a smooth sheen.

You’ll need about 500g of pasta for two. While the salted water you’re going to cook it in comes to the boil, melt 150g of butter in a small saucepan over low heat; add about half a small clove of mashed garlic (be judicious; it can overpower the truffle), plus some salt and pepper.

Cook your pasta and drain it, reserving a little of the water. Take your black truffle – you’ll need a total of about 30-40g for two – and grate half of it into the butter, along with a dessert spoon of the pasta water. Toss through the pasta over high heat, then distribute among hot bowls. Now grate over the rest of the truffle while it’s all hot. Add a little grated pecorino or reggiano if you like. And eat.

It will make you feel wonderful; cure cancer; prevent Covid-19; and bring world peace. Sadly, only one of these options is correct: truffle definitely makes you feel wonderful.