Avgolemono soup with Truffles

One of my all time favourite recipes for featuring black or white truffles; a simple soup with truffles.  This recipe calls for fresh truffles, but you can use a good truffle oil if you don’t have access to fresh.  It’s important when using truffles that you don’t have too many competing flavours.  Truffles are expensive $!, so make sure that they are the primary flavour note,  don’t hide them in spice or herbs.  They do well on simple soup, handmade pasta, egg dishes or a nice medium rare steak (black truffles).  I always think of a simple base recipe that’s served hot and then how to vary the dish in texture; a smooth sauce, chewy al dente noodles, a crunchy crouton and thinly sliced truffles with their powerful umami aroma.  It’s all about the aroma of the truffle, so the fresher the truffle the more aroma.  Each different species of truffle has a different aroma profile and inherent strength.  Italian Alba truffles (Tuber magnatum) are some of the most powerful, the key is to make sure they are shipped direct from Italy to your door within a week.  For local BC/WA/OR truffles, the same applies, make sure they are fresh. The two main types of native truffle to the Pacific Northwest are Oregon Black Truffles (Leucangium carthusianum), and Oregon White Truffles  (Tuber gibbosum, and Tuber oreganese).  To hunt for your own, you’d need to have a truffle dog, there are people in BC that train dogs if you are interested like Brooke Page.  Your dog would start by sniffing around in an older 50+ years Douglas Fir forest.  Truffles grow under the soil in the wild and they can also be cultivated on hazelnut and Xmas tree farms.   You can sometimes find them by searching through squirrel holes in the forest as they’ve been known to cache them like nuts.  Keep an eye on those squirrels as their keen sense of smell attracts them to truffles which are hypogeous (underground).  Or you can go the easy route and buy some fresh truffles or truffle oil:)

If you want me to teach you this recipe personally, join my online Three Course Truffle Class on Jan 14/2021, more info here…

Avglomono soup with Truffles

Ingredients

(Serves 6)

• 1 (25 gram) fresh white or black truffle or a good white truffle oil
• 2 quarts chicken stock (make your own for best results)
• 1 +1/3 c good quality Arborio rice (Italian rice) cooked
• 3 large eggs
• 5 Tbs fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 3-4 juicy lemons)
• 2 Tbs finely diced chives or parsley stems
• salt and white pepper to taste
• toasted slices of bread (crostini)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• cracked salt

Directions:

Bring broth to a boil, then simmer, add cooked rice.  Whisk eggs and lemon well.  Whisk in 1 cup of hot broth to eggs very slowly.  Reduce heat to medium on the stove.  Add egg mixture to broth whisking constantly till thickened, turn off the stove and salt/pepper to taste.   Put your warm crostini on a side plate, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with cracked salt. Pour soup into 4 bowls, and lovingly grate fresh truffles over-top of the soup (or drizzle truffle oil), add the chives/parsley stem and enjoy that gorgeous truffle aroma.