This recipe uses black Venus rice and truffle oil from Belazu who kindly sent me lots of ingredients to try. I hadn’t cooked black rice before and now I’m a total convert. It’s got a fantastic flavour and texture and looks amazing and combined with the truffle oil it’s a winning combo. You can add parmesan too if you want to. My recipe is Italian comfort food and perfect for dinner with a salad.
I cooked this for a friend of mine the other day and she loved it so much she told me I had to put it on the blog. The combination of flavours is fab with the mushrooms, parmesan and truffle oil… they are a marriage made in heaven.
It’s also really easy as most of the work is in the prep, so once you have done that it’s a doddle. You can get little bottles of truffle oil in supermarkets or online and of course in Italian delis, and before you think it’s too expensive, you can get them from as little as £3.50 and remember a little goes a long way, so it will last you for ages.
This is a perfect dinner party or date night supper and works really well with a crispy salad with my vinaigrette recipe which is also on the blog.
I cooked this recipe for an anniversary dinner with one vegan and two vegetarians. I thought I’d cook a truffle spaghetti that was primarily vegan, but had great tastes and textures. So I came up with this truffle spaghetti with breadcrumbs.
It’s mushroomy and truffley and has healthy lemon zest and parsley with crunchy sourdough bread crumbs on top… and if you eat Parmesan you can grate lots on top too.
Every one was happy and loved it so much I have put it on the blog. It’s the perfect dinner party recipe and if you half the quantities it’s perfect for a date night. Truffle oil is used sparingly so a bit goes a long way and in my local supermarket it’s £3.50 a bottle and will last you for ages, so it’s well within budget.
This is an authentic Italian recipe and it’s vegan, but you can serve it with Pecorino cheese finely grated on top if you don’t do vegan, both ways are traditionally Italian. I love truffles on nearly everything, eggs, chips, risotto, pasta, mashed potato…the list is endless. I gave my friends Timna and Vicki my black truffle carbonara a couple of weeks ago and they are still talking about how sublime they think it is. However, I wanted I to do a vegan version too. I think it tastes fantastic, all truffley and garlicky. Its very Italian and it only takes about ten minutes to make, or as long as the spaghetti is cooking. Perfect for a dinner party, you can multiply the amounts or halve the quantities for a super tasty date night.
Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are the best things and like most people I have loved egg and chips ever since my foodie sister took me to a greasy spoon when we were teenagers. At home we were used to eating European food and this was the best kind of British food and a revelation on every level, and something my mum would never have cooked us, so it felt rather exotic. It’s still up there in my memory as one of the best meals I ever had in a restaurant. However, I thought I’d ramp up the flavours a notch and create a newer version using olive oil, truffle oil, parsley and Burford eggs. You can use coconut oil, and there is a taste free version now in health food stores. I’m just eating this now having photographed it for this post, and all I’m thinking is it’s so delicious I can’t wait for Ralph to try it, and it is a perfect date night dinner.
This spaghetti is rather glamorous and it’s what I imagine James Bond would knock up in two seconds if you went round for dinner chez 007. Yes truffles are a luxury, they are not called the diamonds of the kitchen for no reason, but you only need a small amount of them and they are perfect as an ingredient for a special occasion vegetarian supper or romantic dinner for two, and anyway, a bit of what you fancy does you good. One little jar of truffles goes a long way, mine were £9.50 for 50g from a supermarket, but I also found them for £7.30 in an Italian deli. Spaghetti is really inexpensive so it balances out. However, my friend Jenny makes this recipe with sautéed mushrooms instead, and that makes it really inexpensive. This recipe only takes about 10 minutes to make and is perfect for a date night or dinner party..and anyway there is nothing better than spaghetti….nothing.
My music suggestion is Parlami d’amore Mariù by Achille Togliani.
Serves 2-3 people.
Ingredients:
100g freshly grated Parmesan
3 eggs
350g of spaghetti
2 cloves of minced garlic
2 tablespoons of truffle oil available in supermarkets and Italian delis (about £4.00 a bottle which lasts for ages)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
30g butter
A sprig of parsley very finely chopped
Truffles (you can get a small jar in most supermarkets) or sautéed mushrooms if you prefer
Salt and pepper
