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Lucky me, I was invited to a 13-course truffle party, with each course featuring black summer truffles from Italy. Called “Trufflepalooza 2010,” it was 60ish people worshipping at the altar of one of the most earthy, pungent, woodsy, musky, nasty (in a good way!) foods ever to be discovered by a forager armed with a trained pig or a mongrel dog.
The party was originated, hosted and expertly cooked by Erika Kerekes of In Erika’s Kitchen. Get this: We ate Corn Veloute (silky corn soup) with freshly grated truffles on top, drank, ate Radish and Truffle Butter Tartines, drank, ate Crostini with Ricotta and Truffle Honey, talked about food, ate Truffled Egg Salad, drank, ate Green Beans with Porcini Mushroom-Truffle Dip, gossiped, ate Risotto with truffles grated on top, drank, ate Grilled Fontina and Truffle on Brioche (yesss! grilled cheese sammies!), chatted, ate Open-Faced Filet Mignon Sandwiches with Truffle Butter (yesss! steak sammies!), drank, and those of us who could still breathe popped a Truffled Chocolate Truffle into our mouths. There may have been a truffled green salad with pancetta, some roasted baby potatoes with truffles, truffle-infused Brie with truffle honey, and a truffled macaroni and cheese, as well. Or was that just a dream?
My favorite OMG dish was perhaps the most simple: The Radish and Truffle Butter Tartines. Tartine means “toast” in French, so she simply toasted some baguette slices, made butter herself out of cream (Erika, are you Amish?), into it mixed grated truffle and a little truffle oil and truffle salt to taste, then spread that delicious truffle butter on the bread slice, topped with a couple of paper-thin radish slices and a finishing flourish of shaved truffle. (She offers a tutorial on how to make truffle butter yourself.)
I ate one, my eyes got WIDE, and I snatched another. As other dishes circulated, I tried and liked them, as well, but I kept sneaking back to the radish toast table. Confession to Erika: I must have eaten 10. Sorry! (Well, sorta sorry, in a fake-sorry way. Actually, not sorry at all, tra la!)
Her recipe for these truffled radish toasts is posted on her L.A. Examiner site, in case you want to follow along.
Radish and Truffle Butter Tartines
For an even easier version that doesn’t involve churning your own butter (which is fun actually!), I suggest:
- A La Brea Bakery baguette (my personal favorite, available in the supermarket)
- Some truffle butter (from Bay Cities or Surfas if you are on the Westside of Los Angeles, or a gourmet food or cooking store if you are elsewhere)
- Radishes from your garden (they are a cinch to grow!) or the farmers market
- Make one, taste it, and if it needs salt, sprinkle a tiny bit of sea salt on top
Voila! This is going to be my go-to appetizer for the summer!
At the end of the evening, the party stragglers (yes, this would be me) were being fed cold slices of beef drizzled with truffle honey. Oh yes. That was good!Thank you, Erika, for a Shockinglydelicious Trufflepalooza 2010. I can’t wait for next year!
A pile o’ black summer truffles from Italy. Lovely! Pungent!
Green Beans with Porcini Mushroom-Truffle Dip
Emery offers Grilled Fontina and Truffle on Brioche
Risotto with Freshly Grated Truffle, anyone?
Truffled Macaroni and Cheese
Final offering: Truffled Chocolate Truffles!
But wait! To those of us who refused to leave, Erika offered cold sliced beef with truffle honey! Sweeeet!
Welcome to my kitchen!
At ShockD, you’ll find scrumptious, tried & true, "scary good" recipes, tips and coaching to make YOU a fabulous home cook! Don't blame me if you need a 12-step program to wean yourself away!
E-mail me: Dorothy.Reinhold@gmail.com
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This is such a great re-cap to such an amazing event. Erika is definitely the hostess with the mostest! Her truffle creations were divine. It was awesome to see you again 🙂
What no pictures of me?? (teasing) It was great to see you again fellow “camper”. GREG
Sorry, but I couldn’t conjure up any fake sorries. I was proud to be Miss Piggy (it helps when foraging for truffles)!
That Erika is a savory sorceress and I am so so envious that I wasn’t just the slightest bit further west when this happening happened. Gorgeous!
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