It’s white truffle season, a cause for celebration among truffle lovers as the delicacy is generously shaved on top of risotto and pasta dishes in Italian restaurants around the world. Although this precious ingredient is costly and not easy to come by for home cooks, don’t worry. There are many products available that will deliver the same unique white truffle flavor to your fall menu.
Executive Chef Michele Casadei Massari serves white truffle dishes at Lucciola, his Upper West Side restaurant in New York City, from Truffle Burrata Pinsa, a Roman-style pizza, to Tagliatelle with Mushrooms and Truffle. For home cooking, the Chef recommends a polenta dish with a perfect flavor combination: Parmigiano Reggiano and white truffles. “You can find 135 aromas in white truffles, that will be enhanced by the nutty and umami flavors of Parmigiano Reggiano,” explains Chef Casadei Massari.
His recipe uses white truffle-based products by Urbani, but it can be prepared with fresh white truffles: “Just substitute the truffled butter with a neutral butter with a high-fat content (82%), and remove the white truffle and porcini trill in the recipe,” he recommends. “White truffles are never cooked, just shaved on top of the polenta when plated”.
White Truffle Polenta with Parmigiano Reggiano 24 Months by Chef Michele Casadei Massari
Serves 4
Ingredients:
4 cups water
1 teaspoon Urbani White Truffle Salt
1 cup instant polenta (organic)
3 tablespoons Urbani white truffle butter
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano 24 months
1 Urbani White Truffle and Porcini Thrill
Method:
Adjust the cooking time accordingly depending on the kind of polenta.
Brown the polenta in a little olive oil in a saucepan, add a pinch of Urbani white truffle salt, slowly pour warm water into the polenta, whisking until stirred together and there are no lumps.
Simmer, whisking often, until it starts to thicken, about 5 minutes.
Polenta is done when the individual grains are full and tender. Turn off the heat and stir 2 tablespoons of butter, a can of Urbani White Truffle and Porcini Thrill, then mix in ½ cup of Parmigiano Reggiano DOP cheese until it has melted.
Cover and let stand 5 minutes to thicken; adjust the salt before serving.
Top polenta with remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of freshly Parmigiano Reggiano 24 months.
Here are some of the other chef’s secrets in preparing the dish:
He preheats the pot used to cook the polenta (aluminum or copper pots are preferable) as it helps enhance the flavors of the ingredients.
While polenta can be cooked in broth or milk, he uses water to avoid covering the delicate and rich flavors of white truffles and Parmigiano Reggiano.
He adds just a pinch of white truffle salt to the water to bring out more aromas.
He recommends 155°F as the perfect temperature to cook polenta. If the temperature gets too high, a good trick is to temporarily remove the pot from the flame. It is a great way to control the polenta consistency.
He adds the white truffle butter and the Parmigiano Reggiano at the end of the cooking time using the “mantecatura” technique, the final step used when cooking risotto to get a creamy texture.
For extra flavor, in addition to the butter and cheese, he adds Urbani’s White Truffle and Porcini Thrill. “It contains Italian porcini mushrooms that taste as if they were fresh, and don’t have a bitter taste that sometimes comes with dry porcini”, he noted.
He serves the dish in small aluminum bowls to keep the dish at a warm temperature.
He pairs the dish with two wines both made with Nebbiolo grapes from Le Langhe region in Piedmont, also known for the best white truffles in the world: Barolo, for a bolder taste, or the elegant and slightly softer of Barbaresco (he recommends the Prunotto label, from a 1904 winery based in Alba).