My experiences with truffle oil have always bordered on the enigmatic. My first time, I was sitting at a little cafe in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, enjoying the hell out of a cheese plate and a game of Scrabble, when I noticed something peculiar drizzled across my fromage. It had an unearthly, pungent kind of scent—like that of a fairy dragged through the mud. It smelled and tasted very, very nice. I inquired about the drizzled ingredient and was thereby introduced to white truffle oil.
Since that fateful meeting, I have tasted it in macaroni-and-cheese (at Kerry Simon’s restaurant in the Sofitel LA; I must say the dish was a bit heavy-handed—actually, quite inedible, unfortunately), pizza, omelets, and even the occasional grilled cheese sandwich (the best!).
I have never allowed myself to actually purchase this fungal-scented nectar—that is, until my last trip to ShopRite. Yes, you heard me correctly—you can buy truffle oil at ShopRite. I picked it up off the shelf, gazed at it uncertainly for a minute or so, held tremendous debates with myself about spending $6.99 on a tiny little bottle of oil, and considered the possibility that having this previously mysterious ingredient on hand might actually divest it of its mystical qualities. Then I tossed it right in among the broccoli florets.
Two days later … I used it. Here’s what I created with it.
A side note (and this fact makes some “foodie” types freak out): truffle oils are not made from real truffles, which are insanely expensive and hard to come by (remember those pigs that sniff them out?), but are engineered by the very finest noses and palates of our scientific community. Nice work ladies and gentlemen!
Photo courtesy of the author
