The Locale team is enjoying truffle season with fresh Australian truffles featured on the specials menu, including the Hand Cut Tagliatelle with Truffled Fried Egg, Fresh Shaved Tasmanian Truffles and Grana.
The kitchen has also been whipping up truffle butter and preparing rice for truffle risotto. The truffles, which are from Mill Creek in Tasmania are slightly less rich in flavour than Italian and French truffles, and are freshly sourced from Tasmanian farmers.
Truffles can only ripen and be harvested when the soil is extremely cold, which is why Tasmania and Western Australia are producing some great truffles right now.
Truffles grow at the base of hazelnut and oak trees and require the right levels of alkalinity in the soil, as well as specially trained sniffer dogs which take years to train. Once located, they must be dug up gently and dusted off before being stored in an airtight container.
Once you have your truffle, you need to store it and look after it, and also make sure no moisture can get in as you don’t want them going soft.
Truffles can be between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball and are a type of fungus from the tuber family.
Here at Locale we lock the truffles in an air tight container with eggs and rice before grating it on top of fresh pasta, into sauces or making truffle butter. We hope that you will experiment with truffle at home, and make sure you look after them so last!
Buon Appetito
Andy Davies