White truffle season is short and dear: how to make it count
A dry summer has halved the early harvest and pushed prices up. Here is how to buy, keep and shave a small white truffle so not a gram goes to waste.
The white truffle fair in Alba opened on 10 October and runs until 6 December, and this year the talk in the Langhe is about how few truffles there are. After a dry summer the early pieces are small and scarce. Italian truffle buyers said in early October that supply was about half of last year's, and the finest Alba pieces were being quoted at up to 4,500 to 5,000 euro a kilo. Everyone is waiting for rain and cold, which usually bring the better weeks in November.
Meanwhile truffle is everywhere else: on burgers, crisps, mayonnaise and pizza, on menus from Stockholm to Milan. Most of that has never been near a truffle. So this week, a short guide to the real thing: how to buy a small one, keep it alive, and get every gram onto a plate.
I still buy one each autumn. Never a big one. A 20-gram piece shared between four people, shaved over buttery pasta at the kitchen table, is one of the great meals of the year.
How to buy one
- Smell: you can smell a good white truffle before you lift it to your nose. Garlic, honey, damp earth, a little parmesan. If you have to search for the smell, walk away.
- Feel: it should be firm, like a small new potato. Soft or damp spots mean it is past its best.
- Size: small pieces cost less per gram and taste just as good. The price follows size and shape.
- Timing: buy it for a meal within three or four days. A white truffle loses aroma every single day.
- Where: good delis and food halls bring them in during the season. Ask which day the delivery lands and buy that day.
Keeping it alive
Wrap the truffle in kitchen paper, put it in a clean jar with a lid and keep it in the fridge. Change the paper every day, because it soaks up moisture. Do not bury it in rice: rice dries it out and steals the scent. Clean it only just before eating, with a soft brush and a barely damp cloth for stubborn soil. Water speeds up rot.
Bella's tip: Put the truffle in a jar with a few whole eggs from the hens overnight. Eggshells are porous, so the eggs take on the scent. Next morning they become scrambled eggs that taste of truffle before you have shaved a single slice.
Recipe: scrambled eggs with cheese and truffles
What to shave it over
White truffle is never cooked. Heat kills the aroma. Shave it raw and thin, at the table, over something warm, buttery and plain, and let the heat of the food lift the smell. In Piedmont that means tajarin, the thin egg pasta of the Langhe, tossed with butter and a little parmesan. A plain risotto, a cheese fonduta with an egg, or simply a fried egg all work. About 8 to 10 grams per person is generous; 5 grams still makes a meal you remember.
Guide: fresh egg pasta
Recipe: risotto alla parmigiana
Recipe: truffle cheese fondue with poached eggs
Truffle oil, and a cheaper truffle
Most truffle oil, and most truffle crisps and mayonnaise, get their smell from an aroma made in a lab. Many contain only a trace of truffle, or none. That is why they all smell the same, and louder than the real thing. If you like it, enjoy it, but do not judge a real truffle by it. Read the label: "aroma" or "flavouring" is the giveaway.
If white truffle is out of reach this year, look at the Burgundy truffle. It is darker, milder and nuttier, it is in season now, and it grows wild on Gotland, where the truffle season runs through October and November. It costs a fraction of the white, and unlike the white it can take gentle warmth. Grate it into soft butter, roll the butter in paper and freeze it in slices: one coin melted over a steak or a bowl of polenta in January brings autumn straight back.
What to pour
- Barbaresco or Langhe Nebbiolo: The classic. Rose petals, tar and enough acidity to cut the butter.
- An older Barolo: For the one big truffle night of the year. Open it an hour ahead.
- Barbera d'Alba: My everyday answer. Juicy, low in tannin and kind to eggs.
- Timorasso: A white from the Colli Tortonesi with weight and a nutty edge. Lovely with fonduta.
If the rain comes, November will be the month for truffles. Until then: buy small, buy fresh, and eat it the same week.
