French Laundry at Home: White Truffle Oil Infused Custards with Black Truffle Ragout

Truffles are one of the most magnificent ingredients on the planet.  The white truffle oil isn't anything super special but not a lot of recipes use it and it definitely gives a dish that distinctive truffle flavor.  If you've had anything truffle flavored at a restaurant it was likely truffle oil  you tasted.

Fresh truffles, are a completely different beast entirely.  The truffles I got for this dish are perigord truffles which are widely considered the best in the world and are only sourced from France, Italy or Spain.  These truffles are the winter truffles which are slightly different than summer truffles and of course there are black and white versions of each as well.

So some of these pictures are going to be combined prep photos from this post and the next one because some of the steps were identical.  So both dishes needed baked chips that were basically the garnish.  The custard dish went with potatoes that were studded with a chive.  I'll explain the second dish in my next post but suffice it to say that truffles and potatoes were involved.  Also involved were salt and clarified butter.

I brushed my brand new silpats with the claified butter and seasoned with salt.  I then pared down the potatoes for to the desired shape for each f the dishes and put the proper accoutrement in each and topped with the other silpat which was weighted down with another baking sheet and then it went into a 300 degree oven.  According to a recipe it should take about 25 minutes to get the chips a perfect even golden brown.  I cooked these suckers for over an hour and still got unevenly cooked and not so crisp chips.  Thankfully, in my reading of other blogs on the subject indicate that most people that try these dishes at home have a very tough time with the chips.

The chips Were made a couple days before everything else.  When it was time to make everything else I started with the custard.  This included an egg, milk, cream, salt white pepper and truffle oil. 

I combined the milk and cream in a pan and brought the mixture to a boil.  Once at a boil the I took the milk and cream mixture and put it in the blender with the rest of the custard ingredients.

From here, I let the mixture sit for a few minutes and then it went into the hollowed out egg and into a 275 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Baking custards in this manner have never been very successful for me.  in that it takes way longer to cook than the recipe states.

The final piece of this puzzle was the truffle ragout, this included a portion of the veal stock I ma while back, black truffle, white wine vinegar, butter and truffle oil.  I sauteed the truffle in the veal stock and seasoned with a little bit of the vinegar and then finished with the butter and oil.

The components for the final plate.

You can see the second part of this dish in the foreground, and in the background is the custard.  The chip is suffering from the effects of not being crispy enough.