Cuisine – A truffle adventure in Hawke’s Bay

I was fortunate to be invited to a truffle weekend at a country estate in central Hawke’s Bay last month during the truffle season. NZ grown truffles are one of the real seasonal delicacies which gourmets and chefs love to add to dishes. These treasures will probably never reach a supply point where they will be found in supermarkets, as they’re rarity, an acquired taste, that only very few ever get to try.

It has been a very long-term investment in New Zealand for growers as they must start with plantings of seedling trees with inoculated roots to host the development of truffles in the ground underneath them. This can take many years of patience and care. Tuber melanosporum (truffles) were originally found in the Périgord region of France, where they flourished under oak and hazelnut trees. Sites in several regions around the country were identified as ideal and now in winter months we have a very small local industry.

On the farm that surrounds Wallingford Homestead a French oak forest was planted for truffle production more than 30 years ago. We went on a truffle hunt with a local truffle hunter Kate de Latour, and her cute dog Jim, who led the group through the trees, running madly ahead of us and sniffing for the scent that would reveal truffles. It was very close to the end of the season, but clever Jim found several specimens to take back to the homestead kitchen, where our host and chef Chris Stockdale used them subtly in a magnificent dinner for us.

So what does a truffle taste like? It is rich and dark with a very deep savoury aroma, like a very strong field mushroom intensified. It’s usually served as shavings to enrich a pasta or rice dish or in a sauce. The flavour can almost be overpowering. Truffles are available in winter months, direct from growers, easily found on a Google search.

One of Chris’s dishes was a delicious mushroom risotto, flecked and topped with truffle shavings. My risotto has no truffles, but I used Italian dried porcini to capture the richness we had enjoyed. It is easy to use milder Swiss Brown mushrooms for this recipe at home.

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Mushroom Risotto

1 cup risotto rice (Arborio, Carnaroli)
1 small onion or fennel bulb, finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
½ cup of white wine
10g dried porcini (soaked in ½ hot water for an hour and chopped) OR 150g Swiss brown mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 litre good chicken stock
50g parmigiano or pecorino cheese, freshly grated
4 tbsp chopped parsley
½ lemon, grated rind and juice
Salt and pepper

Put the stock in a saucepan and bring to a slow simmer.

Take a heavy bottomed pan and melt the butter in the oil over a medium heat. Add the chopped onion (or fennel) to the pan and cook gently until soft. Add the rice and cook a minute or two, stirring to toast the rice. Add the wine with the porcini or mushrooms and simmer until the wine is absorbed.

With a ladle, add spoonfuls of hot stock to the rice, stirring constantly. Continue to keep the rice simmering and top up with stock as it is absorbed. This will take about 20 minutes as the slow addition and stirring gives the risotto that ‘creamy’ feel.

When all the stock is absorbed and the rice has softened, it is ready to turn the heat off.

Add half the cheese and most of the parsley and stir in well. Taste for seasoning and adjust, adding the lemon rind and juice.

Serve at once on warmed bowls.

Makes a lovely light dinner for two or three served with a big fresh green salad.