White Truffle Vinaigrette

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons chopped shallots
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon white truffle oil
• Salt, to taste
• Pepper, to taste

Uni Risotto with Seared Japanese Scallops, Truffle Vinaigrette and Ikura

Recipe courtesy Chef Rodelio Aglibot, Koi, Los Angeles
FoodNetwork.com

Cook Time:  25 min
Level:  Easy
Yield:  1 serving

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup prepared risotto cooked in dashi
• 2 tablespoons uni puree (reduced cream with ratio of 1-ounce uni to 1 1/2 cups cream)
• 2 (10/20 count) scallops, preferably "dayboat" or Japanese
• Salt and white pepper
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 pieces fresh uni
• 1 teaspoon ikura (salmon roe)
• 1 teaspoon truffle vinaigrette (either store-bought or homemade), or sherry vinaigrette finished with white truffle oil

Directions
As the risotto finishes cooking, stir in the uni puree to coat the risotto. Set aside and keep warm.

Remove the "foot" of the scallops and pat them dry. Season scallops with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a small saute pan over medium-high heat. Add scallops and sear until golden brown on 1 side. Turn scallops over and sear on the other side until golden brown and just cooked through in the middle. Remove from the heat and keep warm.

To serve, place risotto in a bowl and top with scallops. Carefully position a piece of uni on each of the scallops. Garnish with ikura and drizzle with truffle vinaigrette.

Truffled Cod with Garlic-Veal Glace

from "Kitchen of Light" by Andreas Viestad

Cooking with truffles demands a foil that is not too dominant or you will lose the wonderful complexity or aromas that you have paid so much for. Cod, with its subtle taste and its appeal from texture as much as from flavor, is just as suitable as the more common omelet or pasta.

If you cannot get fresh truffles, or if you do not want to splurge on the real thing, a splash of truffle oil will do.

We featured this dish on the New Scandinavian Cooking show from Lofoten, an archipelago in northern Norway that is the center of the Norwegian cod fisheries.

Serves 4

Four 1/2-pound cod fillets, skin on
1 1/2 cups veal stock or 1 cup chicken stock plus 1/2 cup beef stock*
8 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon truffle oil
1/2 ounce fresh black truffle

Soak the fish in ice water for 15 to 20 minutes, or place it in a colander in the sink under cold running water for 15 to 20 minutes. Pat dry with paper towels.

In a small saucepan, bring the veal stock to a boil. Add the garlic and bay leaf and simmer gently until the garlic is soft and the veal stock is reduced to 1/3 cup, 15 to 20 minutes. Makes sure the pot does not boil dry. Remove the garlic with a slotted spoon and set aside. Remove and discard the bay leaf.

Place the flour in a large dish and season with salt and pepper. Dredge the fish fillets in the flour. In a large nonstick skillet with a lid, heat 2 tablespoons of the butter over high heat. Add the fish, skin side up, and cook for 1 minute, then turn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, cover, and cook for 6 minutes, or until the fish flakes nicely with a fork. Remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter and the truffle oil to the veal stock and heat over very low heat until the butter has melted; do not let boil. Add the reserved garlic.
Finely shave the truffle and scatter the shavings over the cod and into the cracks between the flakes of fish. Place the cod on warm plates. Drizzle with the garlic-veal glace and serve.

Truffled Bresaola Salad

by Tanith Tyrr

2 oz Bresaola, sliced paper-thin (this is an air-dried beef, slightly nutty and gamy, cured prosciutto style. If not available, use prosciutto.)
1 head frisee lettuce, separated into small curls
2 oz blanched finely crushed hazelnuts
2 oz crushed black walnuts
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
1/8 cup white truffle oil
1/8 cup hazelnut oil
1/2 cup chanterelle mushrooms, sauteed in a few drops of oil until limp
Raw white truffle slices

Note that either the hard-to-find and expensive Italian White Truffle (tuber magnatum pico) can be used in this salad, or you can use the Oregon White Truffle (tuber gibbosum) to excellent effect on both your palate and your pocketbook.

Mix balsamic vinegar, hazelnuts and hazelnut oil until blended. Arrange frisee to cover the plate, and pour the hazelnut/balsamic dressing over the greens. Arrange bresaola in slices around the plate, and then spoon the mushrooms in a spiral pattern over bresaola and lettuce. Scatter crushed black walnuts over the mushrooms, and drizzle white truffle oil over the bresaola and the salad. Garnish with white truffle slices, as generously as your supply allows.