Four days into Truffle Week, my jeans are fitting a little tighter. my lap feels a little smaller, and my arteries — if you can feel arteries –are packed. I’m not sure I can keep up this exercise. Even if I temper my truffle-infused, cream-based dishes with a side salad, I’ve been leaving the table feeling like I never want to eat again.
You all know how that story continues.
And though I have given away five of the twelve truffles I pulled out of the Oregon forest floor last Monday, I am finding that these babies go very, very far and just keep changing with my whims. They are power-packed. They are long distance runners.
They are the Madonnas of food ingredients.
To be honest, they are starting to get a little annoying. Truffle Week should probably have been Truffle Night.
Tonight I pulled out my old Bayerisches Kochbuch, given to me by my German host mother Sabine from my Fulbright year in Munich, and flipped to the pages for Kartoffelpuffer — potato pancakes, latkes, whatever you want to call them, whatever your culture, these are much-loved street food in Germany and are often served with applesauce.
I like mine with sour cream and chives.
With a side of pork schnitzel.
And a thin smear of truffle butter on top.
I used one of the remaining truffles to make a little canister of truffle butter. Not too difficult, just chopped really small and mixed in soft butter. I’ve been eying this French butter dish, or something similar to it, at the Portland Saturday Market. Seems like a better choice than a custard cup.
Truffle butter goes great on, well, just about anything. I recently had some atop some grass-fed beef in bavette steak form at La Capitale in downtown Salem.
I’m not sure that I’d try it on sweeter dishes, but I’ve heard it can be dripped across anything — brownies, muffins, whatever.
Truffle butter on potatoes of any kind is comfort food with a kick in your hedon bone. We should all be happy that no one has come up with truffle potato chips.
Whoops. Too late.
[...] 1 truffle butter [...]