Cooking with truffle oil? Better not

Truffle season has opened, hooray! At least if you buy the earthy fungus pure, because when it’s processed into a (supermarket) product, you end up feeling pretty deceived, if we’re to believe Julius Jaspers.

In the Algemeen Dagblad, the chef enthusiastically talks about the most delicious mushrooms in the world, but he is very emphatic about truffle oil: “It really is a horror story. If you look at the back of a bottle, you’ll see that it contains exactly zero percent truffle. Besides the oil, you’ll also find truffle paste and truffle mayonnaise on the shelf. You pay €3,- for such a jar, while a kilo of white truffle will quickly cost you around €2000,-. It can vary enormously, you know. It’s a matter of supply and demand. But that does indicate how much real truffle is processed into those jars. To each their own, but the real, precious fungi are a different story.”

So save up a little longer and buy black or white truffle yourself from the greengrocer’s, then. And then? Jaspers: “I always say: keep it simple and stupid. For example, the four-course menu at 5&33 features dishes in which the truffle really shines. Carpaccio with sea salt, olive oil and shaved truffle. Risotto with stock, butter, mushrooms, sea salt and truffle. Beef tenderloin with potato purée and truffle, and finally raspberry tart with white chocolate and truffle. Chocolate is actually very well suited to savoury dishes.”