So, we spent about $230 (including shipping) obtaining an absurdly luxurious ingredient that is only seen at top-end restaurants. A whole bunch of us spent a whole bunch of time working out what recipes we could use that ingredient in and then which of those would work together and in what order. We then spent a bunch of time buying, prepping and cooking those recipes.
Was it worth it?
May I just say, hella yes.
Now let me put some reasons out there.
Truffles are special in particular way. Preserved truffle and truffle oil are at best teasers for the fresh thing. The flavour and scent they can convey is a pale shadow of the fresh. I still have the jar the fresh truffles came in (unwashed, ahem) - it's five months later but I can stick my nose in there and get a truffly ride to heaven that you purely cannot get any other way.
But when you go to the fresh you have another problem. A little bit of truffle only gives you a teasing hint of what it can achieve in its fullness.
If you want to experience the whole thing you absolutely need quite a lot of truffle to get the full effect. That "quite a lot" is only a gram or two per dish (our 70g did eight people for about 6 dishes each - that's about 1.4g/person/dish I think).
But at somewhere between about $2,000/kg wholesale and $3,000/kg retail, and with a shelf life of less than a week (maybe a bit more in a commercial fridge), a restaurant is taking a pretty serious financial risk in offering them a la carte.
If they're following the standard restaurant pricing rule of [ingredient cost = 30% of the dish price] (and yes, I know that's more of a guideline than a rule), then 2g of truffle at $2,000/kg (say, as I have no real insight into wholesale prices) is $4 raw and marked up at 30% discount rate is a $13 supplement to the dish. That takes your $45 Tournedos Rossini without truffles to $58 with which is a pretty daunting price point*.
I've experienced a few dishes that have fallen well short of their potential because the restaurant was not willing to push diners up to the necessary price - they put some truffle in but not enough. A few are prepared to go the distance and to make it clear to their customers that it costs appropriately. Vue de Monde comes to mind - I'm sure there are others but as a CBD dweller I'm mostly only conscious of restaurants within about five blocks.
So the obvious answer, if you have a reasonable amount of confidence in your cooking, is to plan a bit, buy a truffle or two when they are in season, drag out some suitable recipes and go for it. Cook the best meal you can and make a big deal out of the thing, because it is rare and special.
You won't be dealing with the overheads that a restaurant has so the costs will be (relatively) reasonable. $230 between eight diners was just shy of $30 each. If you're drinking pretty good wine with that truffle dinner (another primo home saving compared to restaurant prices, says stingy Ecumer), then you could look on the truffle price as maybe a $20/bottle corkage charge. Cheap compared to a restaurant that would serve truffles by the gram, where that $230 would turn into maybe $600 - $700 in supplements on the bill.
We thought it was pretty clear value. We did it in winter 2008, winter 2009 and we are looking with a beady eye on winter 2010. Through the combination of doing some of the the cooking and eating fulfilling amounts, I'm happy that I have a good starter's understanding of truffles now, and I want to grow that understanding.
You will have noticed that Trufflethon 2009 was a vegetarian feast (and all the better for that!) which was because the driving forces behind 2008 (Mr Nissen & Kylie) are themselves vegetarian and we continue in the tradition of the founders. Carnivorous forces in the blogosphere are agitating for a fleshy version in winter 2010, which may mean that we omnivores have to do two lunches - oh, the humanity!
And we thought about doing a function with winter (northern hemisphere) truffles in our December /January. Why not?
- Euro truffles in Aus in our summer are more expensive than Aus truffles here in our winter.
- truffle recipes are a bit wintry in their nature. Give me a year or three and maybe we'll sort some summer truffle recipes; until then winter is our friend.
See you for truffles in August,
Ecumer
* and let's not get onto the cost of foie gras here
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