recipe

Lemon risotto and Caprese salad with truffles

Posted on by David
What a luxury to shave truffles over some of our favorite summer dishes! I was surprised when several chefs suggested black truffles on a Caprese salad, but if the tomatoes have enough acidic zing, it's a match made in heaven. Our own tomatoes aren't quite ripe yet, so I have to resort to hoop house or hot house varieties. One trick to restore the “fresh tomato” flavor to these typically bland fruits is to give them a tiny sprinkle of salt, sugar, and citric acid. Citric acid is sometimes sold as “sour salt,” and is readily available in Indian grocery stores. (I mix up the seasoning in a ratio of 20 parts salt to 5 parts sugar and 1 part citric acid and store it...Read More

Stretching black truffles with alioli

Posted on by David
The good and bad side of fresh truffles is that you have to eat them up right away because they only keep for a week or two in the refrigerator, even if you let them breathe every day when you change the absorbent paper in the container. In the process of eating them up, it's easy to have a lot of truffle “crumbs” or extra shavings. The solution to that problem is truffle alioli, the Catalan answer to mayonnaise. We made a pretty big batch (nearly 2 cups) and used it to make potato salad (with sliced boiled potatoes, minced onion, chopped boiled egg, and minced celery) and to make a delicious chicken salad. The secret to great alioli is to store the eggs in...Read More

Black truffle quiche

Posted on by David
Everyone always says that truffles pair well with eggs so I thought a black truffle quiche would be a natural. But when I went looking, the only recipes I could find for truffle quiche use truffle oil—an interesting ingredient in its own right if you like laboratory flavors, but not exactly real truffle. To create a quiche worthy of truffles, I turned to two late, great chefs whose teachings inform pretty much everything I cook. I combined my favorite savory crust, which is adapted from Charles Virion, and Julia's Child's quiche Lorraine recipe, substituting truffles for bacon. She was right—quiche doesn't need cheese. I scaled the recipes for a seven-inch tart pan that makes just the right size for light lunch or a good appetizer...Read More

Black truffle pizza tricks

Posted on by David
I got some of my best ideas about how to adapt truffles for home preparations from Doug Psaltis of RPM Steak (rpmsteak.com), RPM Italian (rpmitalian.com), and Paris Club (parisclubbistroandbar.com) in Chicago, who is the biggest user of Aussie truffles in the U.S. Psaltis credits his comfort level with truffles to the seven and a half years he spent working for Alain Ducasse (he opened Mix in New York). “I learned the best thing about truffles—that they are really delicate and not overpowering,” he told me. “There are a lot of aromas to truffle dishes but what I really savor is the actual flavor of truffle. Handled right, it's light and delicate. You can add lots of butter and lots of cheese to make a Parmesan...Read More

Sweet corn tamales with black truffle

Posted on by David
During last July's research trip to Australia, I babied a single prize black truffle all the way home. I kept it cool inside a rigid plastic box wrapped with absorbent paper that I changed every 12 hours so it wouldn't get too moist. When asked at Border Control if I had any fresh food, I said, “yes, a black truffle.” The agent said, “OK,” and waved me through. The real question was what to make with this spectacular faceted lump (see above) that was an 80-gram culinary gem? How could I stretch it as far as possible without skimping on the flavor in each dish? After an indulgent meal of black truffle sliced over buttered pasta (see last post), I decided to set aside the...Read More

Peddling truffles with Simon Friend

Posted on by David
When I researched the Robb Report story on Australian truffles, I had the pleasure of meeting Melbourne-based Simon Friend and his partner Bryan Burrell. They do business as Friend & Burrell (friendandburrell.com.au), but they might as well be called The Good Tastes Guys because they're Australia's go-to suppliers of gourmet mountain hams from Spain, Giaveri caviar, and big tins of Iranian saffron. The two former tennis professionals are also major distributors of black truffles from the Australian Truffle & Wine Company. As the Melbourne Truffle Festival was about to start last July, I joined Simon Friend on his sales and delivery rounds in Melbourne. The state of Victoria has its own truffle industry, but production is dwarfed by the Manjimup farm, a four-hour plane ride...Read More
The Palm serves a mean shepherd’s pie

The Palm serves a mean shepherd’s pie

Posted on by Pat and David
The Palm Boston (www.thepalm.com/Boston) got a new lease on life when the iconic steakhouse moved from Copley Place in Back Bay to the swank One International Place Tower at the edge of the Financial District. Now that the weather has warmed, the restaurant can show off one of its greatest assets: the outdoor seating looking out on the new Seaport District just across Fort Point Channel. Over the winter, regulars gathered in the glittering interior for wine dinners. We enjoyed the Lafite Wine Dinner that paired a number of wines from the legendary Bordeaux house's farflung empire with some classic Palm cookery, including seared sea scallops with a pea and truffle purée, ancho- and espresso-rubbed lamb chops, and braised short ribs with a wild cherry...Read More

Tortellini in brodo is a Modena treat

Posted on by David
Before I visited Modena, I kept seeing references to the city as the home of stuffed pasta. It made little sense to me, but when I arrived, I discovered that the signature pasta of the region are those diminutive stuffed crowns known as tortellini. (They also serve tortelloni, which are much bigger and go better with tomato sauce.) Specifically, the classic dish of Modena is tortellini in brodo: the little pastas served in a strong chicken broth. Every home cook has a family recipe for the broth—and most people just go to the market and buy terrific fresh tortellini from local producers like Doremilia (www.doremilia.it). I got a chance to see Doremilia's pasta factory in the hill village of Monchio di Palagano, about 45 minutes...Read More

Pomodorina belies canned tomato image

Posted on by David
Pomodorina is tomato sauce rethought, and it's my most unexpected find on a recent research trip to Modena. We've already written about “What to buy in an Italian grocery store,” but here's a product I'd definitely add. Pomodorina has been the best-selling product of one of Italy's best food factories, Menù, since it was introduced in 1967. It's made only during the roughly six-week tomato harvest season and combines freshly harvested and cooked tomatoes with celery, carrots, onions, fresh basil, and some olive oil. Menù sells it as a base ingredient for sauces, but I discovered that some restaurants consider it good enough to sauce pasta on its own. That's spaghetti sauced with Pomodorina above, and it was delicious. Menù (http://en.menu.it/) is based in Medollo...Read More

Carrot mac & cheese for grown-ups

Posted on by Pat and David
We encounter a lot of great food when we work on researching and updating our Food Lovers' books about the New England states. But a simple and delicious plate of carrot mac & cheese from Daily Planet in Burlington (15 Center St., 802-862-9647, www.dailyplanet15.com) stuck in our minds. We ate it one chilly night at the bar of this bohemian downtown favorite with a moderately priced contemporary locavore menu and wondered why we had never thought of it ourselves. A quick Google search revealed that a number of cooks had thought about such a dish. But most of the recipes we could find used either grated carrot or puréed cooked carrots and seemed designed to fool the kids into eating a vegetable. The Daily Planet...Read More