Truffle

 I think I have posted before about my love of truffle as a food flavouring. I was out last night at a very nice restaurant in Doha on a work event and one of the courses was an Italian dish which had mushrooms in a truffle sauce and some kind of semolina. 

The first thing that struck me was the smell. This dish was one of three which we were served to be shared. The other two dishes were also good - a burrata and a slow cooked rib. However, the smell of the truffle infused mushroom literally made my mouth water and I could not wait to get my hands on a spoon to get it onto my plate.

It tasted as good as it smelt. 

The first time I recall consciously eating truffle was at the St Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi which I was visiting (this was probably around 3 or 4 years ago - possibly longer) with V and E. Again, the first thing I noticed was the smell but I did not recognise it and it was coming from the recently delivered plates of diners on an adjacent table.

It smelt so  good that I realised I had to have whatever it was that they were eating but all we could really see was steak and chips so in the end I managed to persuade V to go over to their table to find out what it was.

It transpired that it was truffle coated fries/chips so of course I ordered them and they tasted as good as they smelled. I have not looked back but  - I guess due to the cost - they do not seem to feature very frequently on the menus I see (or perhaps I just go to the wrong type of restaurant) -yesterday was my first encounter for about 6 months

One of my colleagues recently gave me a small jar of truffles for use in home cooking following a recent visit to Italy so no excuse for me to do some home-cooking to satisfy any truffle cravings.