Desert truffle ✦

Terfèze

What it is

Terfezia is not a Tuber at all: it lives with a low desert shrub, Helianthemum, and swells after the winter storms, harvesters reading the cracks the growing fungus opens in the sand. Bedouin tradition holds that lightning makes the crop, and the thing itself is nearly odourless, firm as a potato, and sold by the sack rather than the gram.

In the kitchen

Peel it: the skin holds sand that no washing removes, and the flesh underneath needs plenty of fat and long, gentle cooking to soften. Treat it as a root vegetable — braised in a lamb tagine, or in samna with onion — and expect texture, not perfume.

Goes with

Lamb Butter Cumin Garlic Onion Saffron

In season alongside

Cauliflower Celeriac St George’s mushroom Bamboo shoot Bianchetto truffle Blonde morel

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