Chinese truffle

Truffe de Chine

What it is

Tuber indicum is a genuine Asian species, harvested in Yunnan and Sichuan, that happens to look almost exactly like the Périgord truffle in cross-section while carrying a fraction of its aroma. DNA testing of European truffle products has turned it up repeatedly in jars and oils labelled melanosporum, and it has since been found growing in a few European orchards, its spores having travelled with the trade.

In the kitchen

Buy it knowingly and use it for what it does: its firm flesh holds through cooking, slices cleanly for garnish and fills out a stuffing where melanosporum would be wasted. Expect nothing from infusion — a night with eggs or in butter gives almost no aroma, so the perfume has to come from elsewhere.

Goes with

Egg Butter Rice Cream Potato Chicken

Same species

Bagnoli truffle Bianchetto truffle Musky truffle Burgundy truffle Oregon white truffle Pecan truffle

In season alongside

Bay bolete Honey fungus (chiodini) Amethyst deceiver Arbutus berry Hind Bintje potato

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