Sweet garlic soup with black truffles

The weather’s been good. Just when I thought that the temperature was going to soar like inflation, it dipped. I was sitting out at Sevilla in Delhi’s Claridges Hotel when it even started drizzling a bit. In front of me, nicely laid out, was a dish of pasta infused with truffles and a black truffle pana cotta.

It was, as you can tell, an evening of truffles. Time was when you couldn’t get truffles for love or for money. These days, you can source your truffles from some high-end stores and suppliers. Of course, white truffle is still difficult to get, for it has to be eaten fresh. But you can get your black truffles sealed in brine water or oil.

Truffles are edible fungi that grow close to the roots of some trees

Truffles, which belong to the tuber genus, are edible fungi that grow close to the roots of some trees. The word originates from the Latin ‘tufer’, which means a lump. The French call it ‘truffe’ and the Italians, ‘tartufo’.

A kilo of white truffles can cost anything between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000. The black truffles are cheaper, and come for Rs 16,000-Rs 18,000 a kilo. In some restaurants, the white truffles are weighed, grated and added to your dish on your table. The black truffle, being the relatively poorer cousin, is added to your dish in the kitchen.

One of the reasons why truffles are so expensive is that they are not easy to get. There was a time when experts even thought that the fungi had to grow wild and couldn’t be cultivated. Truffle hunters would go with their pigs to look for truffles. The pigs were good at sniffing them out. The problem was they were equally good at gulping them down in a second. So dogs were rained to smell out the truffles and not eat them. Exit the pigs, enter the dogs.

Pizza bianco with black truffles

Truffles are now being cultivated by farmers who scatter the fungi spores near the roots of young oak trees. That’s good news for truffle lovers — though it may upset those who like it more for their exclusivity. Widespread cultivation would obviously, in the years to come, bring down the prices.

Clearly, the Indian palate is opening up as well. That was the reason why executive chef Ravi Saxena organised a foie gras and black truffles festival at Sevilla in the age of pink slips. He gets his truffles from Italy and serves them regularly in his restaurants. He can make you an excellent sweet garlic soup with truffles. He thickens milk with garlic, and then keeps discarding the milk and adding fresh milk to the garlic in a pan. This gives you just the right taste of garlic —aromatic, yet not overwhelming —capped by chewy truffles.

Black truffle pana cotta with fresh strawberries

He can cook a mean seared lamb loin with lentil stew and black truffles and a potato gratin with scrambled eggs and black truffles (see recipes). The chef serves a pizza bianco with black truffles. And for dessert, you can have a gelato with truffles, or a black truffle pana cotta with fresh strawberries.

Of course, truffles with their earthy taste are best eaten fresh. To accentuate the taste of truffles that have been imported, chefs usually add truffle oil to a dish. But truffles truly are magic. The early Romans thought that because they grew in the shadow of trees, they were the fruits of a lightning. Those chaps were not greatly factual — but I have to admit they got the spirit right. A truffle is something out of the ordinary. Even the pigs know it.

Scrambled egg with potato gratin and black truffles

Ingredients (for five)

• 10 eggs • 30ml cream • 60gm butter • 2 medium-sized potatoes • 60ml olive oil • 12gm black truffles •50gm Parmesan cheese • Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Half boil the potatoes and peel them. Grate them and season with saltand pepper. Add half the butter in the potato mixture. Divide in five equal portions. Heat a non-stick pan, add olive oil and cook each potato portion in the shape of a disc from both sides till light brown in colour. Gratinate in an oven with grated parmesan cheese on top of every portion. In a bowl beat the eggs well and season. Melt butter in a pan and add the beaten eggs to make scrambled eggs. Do not over cook. Towards the end add cream and take it off the fire. Add chopped black truffle and truffle oil. On a plate put the potato gratin and with the help of a steel ring add the scrambled egg. Remove the ring and serve hot garnished with cherry tomato and parsley leaves.

Seared lamb loin with lentil stew and black truffles

Ingredients (for five)

• 5 New Zealand lamb loins (150 gm each) • 350gm Puy lentils (green lentils) • 5 cloves of garlic • 150gm chopped onion • 1 chopped carrot • 2 diced tomatoes • 200ml olive oil • Thyme, a few sprigs 15gm black truffle • 80gm butter • 100ml lamb jus • 10ml white truffle oil • 100ml white wine

Method:

Soak the lentils in water. In a pan heat half the olive oil. Add chopped onions, garlic and carrots. Add the drained lentils, sauté for a while and add the white wine. Cook by adding small quantities of stock. Make sure there’s enough liquid for a stew. Season. When almost done add half the butter, diced tomato and truffle oil. Keep aside. Marinate the lamb loin with olive oil, salt, pepper and sear the lamb from all the sides using olive oil. Bake the lamb in the oven. In a deep dish put the ready hot lentil stew, arrange the sliced lamb loin and put chopped black truffles. Pour over some hot lamb jus over the lamb slices and dredge over some truffle oil. Serve hot garnished with a sprig of parsley.