Truffle Pasta Lasagne

This truffle mushroom lasagne is pure winter comfort food. A richly flavoured mushroom ragu is layered with a creamy truffle bechamel sauce, fresh pasta sheets, truffle cheese and mozzarella and finished off with freshly shaved truffles! This is the perfect recipe if you're after a divine way to use a fresh truffle!

It's winter and truffle season and if you're lucky enough to have a fresh truffle then make the most of it by creating this wonderful truffle lasagne. When I have a special ingredient I like to share it with other people and this lasagna serves 8 or even 10 people. The key to giving it a distinct truffle flavour is to layer truffles in each part. To do this we will use homemade truffle oil, truffle butter and truffle cheese. All of these ingredients help extend and enhance the truffle flavour at a fraction of the cost of your fresh one! I have found that just shaving it at the end is nice (especially if you have a strongly aromatic truffle) but to get a really pronounced flavour you need to layer the truffle flavour.

Truffle Oil - the Good, Bad and Ugly

Truffle oil has come a long way. When I was a kid I remembered smelling one and it had the distinct odour of petroleum and for the longest time I wondered why on earth people were so obsessed with it. But nowadays I'm surprised that some truffle oils smell just like truffle - some restaurants only use truffle oil out of season and it is so good that you would swear it contained truffles. If you find that happens to you, ask for the label of the truffle oil.

However there are still truffle oils that smell nothing like truffles. Check the label, even if they say they're truffle oil they don't legally have to contain any real truffle at all. I recently bought one from Woolworths that was a cold pressed truffle oil and it smelled like rotting onions and when I checked the label it contained no truffle at all, just artificial aromas (you can't always see the back labels when you buy online or I would've avoided it). So always check the label and if it's at a nice shop ask to smell the truffle oil.

How To Make Your Own Home Made Truffle Oil

If you have a truffle make your own truffle oil with the offcuts! I had some offcuts and made my own truffle oil for this recipe and within a day the aroma was incredible. To make homemade truffle oil add a few shavings of fresh truffle to a cup of extra virgin olive oil and gently heat to 50C/120F. It will last for 3 days in the fridge. Please note that because this hasn't been heated to 115°C - 121°C or 240°F - 250°F (the temperature to kill botulism) it is only safe for 3 days. 1 cup of homemade truffle oil will be enough for this lasagne.

How To Keep Your Truffles Fresh

• Always keep your truffles cold at a constant, cool temperature.
• Keep fresh truffles in a lidded jar wrapped in a paper towel. Change the paper towel daily (this is very important or mould will develop on your truffle).
• You can also store eggs and a small wedge of cheese in the jar to infuse them.
• Your fresh truffle will last for around 1 week to 10 days in the fridge as long as you change the paper towel daily.

I hadn't intended to buy any truffle this year (walk in robes were taking precedence this year) but I was actually gifted the truffle by Laura. It was such a kind and entirely unnecessary gift but she surprised me with it one night. She wanted to thank me for putting her onto my accountant Emma. She is an amazing accountant who leaves no stone unturned and she is always on hand for advice. Emma and her team had found a loophole by carefully researching something and she ended up with a generous tax benefit. Talk about pennies from heaven (or from your accountant). And while some people might clutch money close to their chest when they get a windfall Laura wanted to say thank you by way of a truffle.

One night we went out to dinner and she had the truffle chilling in a cooler bag in the boot of her car. It was around 11pm and we were on a quiet side street when she opened her car boot. "This looks so dodgy," she said laughing. She presented me with a jar containing Tommy the truffle. He was a beautiful specimen that she had bought from Turalla truffles and Bungendore and he smelled incredibly intoxicating. And Tommy was the most delicious, aromatic gift a girl could ever ask for that ended up infusing this lasagne with so much flavour!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever cook with truffles? And what do you think of truffle oil? Have you ever had one that you like?

Truffle Lasagne Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 55 minutes

Serves: 8

Filling:

• 6 dried small shiitake mushrooms
• 20g/0.7ozs sliced porcini mushrooms
• Truffle oil*
• 1 large brown onion, peeled and diced
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and diced
• 900g/2lbs mushrooms, sliced thinly

Bechamel Sauce:

• 100g/3.5ozs truffle butter (Coppertree does a great one)
• 100g/3.5ozs plain all purpose flour
• 4 cups/1 litre/2.11pints milk (skim or full fat), hot
• 120g/4ozs truffle cheddar cheese, grated
• 1.5 teaspoons salt

For the lasagne

• 200g/7ozs mozzarella, grated

• 100g/3.5ozs truffle cheddar, grated

• 375g/13ozs fresh lasagne sheets (6 sheets)

• Extra truffle oil, truffle and truffle cheddar for serving

To make homemade truffle oil add a few shavings of fresh truffle to a cup of extra virgin olive oil and gently heat to 50C/120F. It will last for 3 days in the fridge.

Step 1 - First rehydrate the dried mushrooms. Place the shiitakes and porcinis in a bowl and cover with a cup of boiling water. Cover and allow to rehydrate for 30 minutes. Chop up the onions, garlic and fresh mushrooms while the dried mushrooms are rehydrating. Preheat oven to 180C/350F and grease a lasagne tray (mine was 22x34cms/9x14inches).

Step 2 - When the mushrooms are hydrated slice them up removing the stems if they are tough or woody. Place a large saucepan onto medium heat and add the truffle oil and fry the onion until softened. Then add the mushrooms and sauté using some of the mushroom soaking water. Sauté until the mushrooms are soft and cooked through (around 15 minutes).

Step 3 - Make the béchamel sauce. Heat the butter in a saucepan until melted. Add the flour and stir and cook for 1 minute. Add the milk gradually whisking the whole time. Once it is smooth add the truffle cheese and salt and allow to melt through and thicken. Thermomix directions: Place the butter, flour, milk, cheese and salt and set to 10 minutes, speed #4, 90C.

Step 4 - The lasagne should have three layers of mushrooms, four layers of bechamel and six layers of pasta. Spread a quarter of the bechamel on the base of the lasagne dish. Then add a layer of pasta and then cover with a third of the mushrooms. Layer with the bechamel, another third of mushrooms, then bechamel and repeat until you have a layer of pasta and then top this with the last quarter of bechamel sauce. Sprinkle grated mozzarella and truffle cheddar on top and then bake for 30-35 minutes, turning halfway to evenly brown the top. I like to cool lasagne completely and refrigerate it and then serve it the next day as it cuts cleaner and the flavours develop. To reheat from cold, cover with an oiled sheet of foil (so the foil doesn't stick to the cheese) and heat for 30-35 minutes at 180C/350F.

Step 5 - Slice the lasagne into pieces and drizzle the slice generously with the truffle oil. Shave extra truffle and truffle cheese over the top.