How Is Truffle Oil Made?
It sounds incredibly romantic and conjures up images of quaint villages in Italy and France and hand-crafted produce, the original recipes of which have been being lovingly passed down from generation to generation. However, it does tend to come as a shock to some that the truffle oil you see in your local deli and farmshop or on the supermarket's shelves is not made from real truffles at all, but from synthetic flavourings, actually nature identical flavourings that have been determined to exist in natural truffles.
Many people may gasp in horror that what they are enjoying is actually the product of clever organic chemistry rather than tradition and real ingredients, but the truth of the matter is that fresh truffle oil is dangerous to make, has very little shelf life and virtually no flavour!
The compounds used to produce the oil exist 100% naturally in fresh truffles, so what goes into each and every bottle (provided you go with quality rather than price) is a synthetic nature identical replication of the flavour compounds found in real truffles.
Truffles do not have infinite life spans; in fact, when created from real truffles only lasts a matter of days before spoiling. If left longer there is a risk of toxication due to botulism. And steeping truffles in olive oil does not impart as strong a flavour as one might expect. In fact, often the flavours are so mild and indiscernible, it is actually rather a waste of very expensive and delectable ingredients!
So, the commercial oils that are available today are made by mixing olive oils and nature identical truffle flavourings. The key differentiation in the quality of the finished product lies in the skill of the flavourist, the person responsible for blending, tasting, and producing the final product.
And the differences are huge. Many truffle oils are simple, one dimensional, nasty chemically smelling products. The occasional oil is a complex, soft, powerful but not overpowering aroma. High quality truffle oil is the result of much research and the work of top flavourists in blending and tasting. Only then can the true experience be appreciated.
TruffleHunter Truffle Oil is a result of 12 months research evaluating every oil available on the market, followed by painstaking blind tastings of a variety of truffle flavour combinations produced by one of the top flavourists in Europe.
Our oil is soft, complex, with a powerful, lingering flavour very reminiscent of real truffles. It is simply the best tasting truffle oil available in the market place today. Find out more about Truffle Oil here.
The TruffleHunter has an excellent resource of free Truffle Recipes, be sure to try them out. You can learn more about Truffle Hunting here too with video!
We hope you find us to be a good resource.
The Truffle Hunter
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Lynch_Farrell
