12 Food + Drink
how pure it is. “If there are ingredients you
can’t pronounce, it’s going to smell more
like stinky feet than truffles.”
They may not be the food snobs’ choice,
but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun
with oils, Kenedy says. Creamy dishes
such as buttery pasta, scrambled eggs and
mash potato pair well with a drizzle ofO
utrageously expensive
and notoriously rare, truf-
fles were once a luxury,
the star of a perfect taglio-
lini or risotto. In 2021 it’s a
different story: we have
reached peak truffle.
You can’t escape them in restaurants.
There are pizzas coated in truffle shavings,
scrambled eggs whipped up with truffle oil
for breakfast. At home, left to our own de-
vices, the risk for truffle overdose is even
greater: it’s in ready meals such as M&S’s
truffle lasagne. At Sainsbury’s, where
you’ll find truffles in Taste the Difference
mashed potato, cheddar cheese and evenhummus, sales of truffle-flavoured prod-
ucts are up 151 per cent on last year. We can
dunk our chips in infused condiments,
from Heinz’s truffle-flavoured mayon-
naise to Truff’s hot sauce, and the Torres
black truffle crisps from Brindisa are on
every middle-class shopping list. We can
even make cocktails that taste of it, with
truffle-infused gin. Shaken up, of course,
while you are wearing an apron from the
Truffle Guys, the hipster “chef bros” bring-
ing truffles to the millennial masses
through their range of merchandise.
How did something once considered so
sophisticated become so... common?
“Truffles represent luxury and everyoneIt’s in ready meals, crisps, pizzas, hummus, and even gin —
now chefs think we’re overdoing it. Hannah Evans reports
likes to feel like they’re experiencing
something luxurious,” explains Meera
Cortesi, who has been the go-to truffle
hunter for London’s best restaurants. Her
team of truffle hunters at Cortesi source
the best Italian white and black truffles for
some of London’s finest restaurants, from
Ruth Rogers’s River Café to Angela Har-
nett’s Murano. “It doesn’t matter what
you’re eating or whether or not it even
tastes good, if it’s got truffle on it, you feel
like you’re spoiling yourself.”
Truffles are expensive, particularly this
year. A dry summer in Italy means that
white truffles, which grow organically, are
now sold at £6 a gram to restaurants, and
up to £9 a gram in shops such as Fortnum’s
or Harrods compared with approximately
£6 a gram before. “You need between 3-5g
per dish at least to make it worthwhile,”
Cortesi says.
If you’re going to fork out that much,
you will want to know the difference
between white and black truffles. “White
truffles are very delicate and have a more
garlicky smell so you wouldn’t want to
cook with them,” Cortesi explains. “They
go beautifully shaved on eggs or with
cheese like Comté on toast.” Black truffles,
on the other hand, have a more earthy and
mushroom flavour profile, so can be
cooked. “I think of black truffles like an in-
gredient. You can add them to sauces like
a pesto.” If you choose to cook with them,
do so on a medium to low heat. Truffles re-
lease their flavour and aroma at about 37C.
Any hotter and you’ll lose much of the aro-
ma and flavour.
Jacob Kenedy, the owner and head chef
at the Italian restaurant Bocca di Lupo, is
one of the chefs battling against truffle in-
dignity and a self-declared truffle purist.
“Real truffles are far too expensive to put
on popcorn,” he says.
Most everyday cooks can’t afford to buy
truffles, so the next best thing is truffle oil.
A lot of chefs will turn their nose up at this
— and it’s not because of its intense pong.
Most cheap oils are made with synthetic
ingredients that smell and taste like truf-
fles instead of the real thing. “It’s like the
savoury version of vanilla essence,” Kene-
dy says. “If you buy truffle oil, you need to
accept that most times you’re going to pick
up something that is the equivalent to a
high street perfume.” So popular has truf-
fle oil become it’s now seen as a store cup-
board staple. Head over to the Sainsbury’s
website and you’ll find recipes from mush-
room and truffle oil soup to truffle oil
mac’n’cheese in its midweek meal sugges-
tions.
If you want truffle oil made with real
truffles, expect to fork out some serious
cash. “As with anything truffle related,
there is a correlation between price and
quality,” Kenedy says. A 250ml bottle of
Urbani oil made with real black truffles, a
favourite among chefs, costs £34.50 (fine-
foodspecialist.co.uk).
If you are going to stick at the lower price
bracket with supermarket offerings —
Tesco sells La Espanola Truffle Flavoured
Olive Oil for only £2.60 — there are a few
rules to follow. Always buy a product made
with extra virgin olive oil, and make sure
that you read the back of the bottle to seeChef Jacob KenedyPerfect on
macaroni
cheese
How to use truff le oil: an expert