I often talk about foraging my way through my local farmer’s market and around my neighborhood during harvest time. It’s not true foraging like the folks at Foraged and Found do. They really get out in the woods and find wild treasures. When I’m “foraging” at the farmer’s market, I make sure to stop by their booth to pick up a few treasures.
Ripening, Unwashed Black Truffles
In spring, I jump on the morels…and cook them! In late summer, I stock up on hand-picked Wild Huckleberries. I gorge on them and freeze some to enjoy later in the winter. In fall, I try out all sorts of fungi, ranging from sweet, woodsy chanterelles to musty rich boletes to icicle looking old man’s beard to odd fans of cauliflower blooms and when I’m really lucky, I stock up on black truffles.
Yes, here in the pacific northwest we do have black truffles growing in our woods. Apparently, they’re partial to our native Douglas Fir. And these guys know where to find them. And, no, they aren’t cheap. But a little goes a long way.
Black Truffles in Salt & Risotto
I’ve taken basic mushrooming classes and am a card-carrying member of the Puget Sound Mycological Society. But, I don’t think that makes me any kind of mushrooming expert. You’ll definitely want to contact this, or your own local society for mushroom identification, edibility and other information.
A couple of big warnings I got in my mushrooming class is to cook every mushroom I think about eating, just to be safe. But, then I buy the black truffle and am told (and read in many places) to not cook this one. Being a scardy-cat, I did try cooking some shavings into almost-finished-cooking scrambled eggs. The result was all-egg-no-truffle flavor. Part of the problem was the cooking; part was a not-quite-ripe truffle.
- Thinly slice and air dry on food dehydrator trays. I don’t turn on the dehydrator as I don’t want to heat/cook the scent out of them.
- Add dried bits to high quality sea salt to infuse the salt with the fragrance
- Scrub a couple of truffles clean and drop hole into a bottle of olive oil to infuse oil with truffley-goodness.
- Put a ripening truffle in a paperbag. Don’t wash it as it will store better dirty. Place the bagged truffle into a ziplock bag filled with risotto to infuse the uncooked grains with a fantastic truffle aroma.
- Scrub clean ripe truffles and freeze whole or sliced to use later.
- Squeeze, touch and sniff daily. I don’t want them to “go over the hill”, so I check my ripening truffles regularly. They seem to be storing well in the fridge in a sealed glass container. I do get some sweating in the jar, so I check to be sure that isn’t causing “resting spots” on the truffles, ripening them too fast.
I’m definitely learning more about these little oddballs. My kitchen (and probably most of my house) smells like truffles now that I have some drying. And I love it!
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by gardenmentor. gardenmentor said: They said this truffle salt would fail, but a year ltr this black truffle salt is still amazing: http://bit.ly/3p0gpm thx @foragedandfound [...]