No. 177

To Brush and Peel Truffles

Pour Brosser et Peler les Truffes

Put some raw, fresh truffles into cold water; wash them well, changing the water, then take them out one by one, and rub the surfaces over strongly with a hard brush, and throw them as fast as they are done into clean water, drain; take them out again one by one, and remove with a small knife all those parts the brush failed to touch, then refresh them leaving them as little as possible in the water. Wipe the truffles on a cloth, and with the tip of a knife detach all the skin covering them, cutting it away as thinly as possible, put the truffles as fast as they are done into a saucepan with a well-fitting lid; put also the peelings into a saucepan, and keep them in a cool place while waiting to be used.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A preparation method rather than a dish, written for a kitchen that bought fresh black truffles by the pound and used every scrap of them. Most of it still holds; one instruction has been abandoned entirely.

Do not peelModern practice generally leaves the skin on a black truffle. The peridium carries much of the aroma and a good share of the weight you paid for, and thin-skinned Perigord truffles come clean with a brush alone. Peeling was standard in professional kitchens of Ranhofer's day, where truffle was often cut into decorative shapes; nothing on a home plate requires that.
Keep the water contact shortThe instruction to leave them "as little as possible in the water" is the hinge. Truffles are porous and waterlogging both dilutes the aroma and shortens keeping. Brush under a thin stream or in a bowl, then dry at once.
The brushA "hard brush" means a stiff natural-bristle vegetable or nail brush, not a wire one. Work into the crevices of the warty exterior, where the grit sits; a bamboo skewer or the knife tip finishes the deep folds, as the text says.
The peelingsIf you do peel, the trimmings are not waste. They go into sauces, forcemeats and truffle butter, or are infused into Madeira or stock. Ranhofer sets them aside in a saucepan of their own, kept cool until wanted.
The saucepan with a well-fitting lidThis is nineteenth-century cold storage: a closed vessel in a cool larder until wanted. Today, a closed container in the refrigerator with a paper towel changed daily, and use within three or four days. Truffles perfume everything near them, which is useful with eggs and rice and ruinous with butter you meant to taste of butter.
What "fresh truffles" means hereThe recipe names no species; a winter black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, is the likely assumption. Preserved or canned truffles need none of this, summer truffles (T. aestivum) are milder and cheaper, and white Alba truffles are conventionally not washed or peeled, only brushed.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of thirty-odd years at Delmonico's in New York, and its "Elementary Methods" chapter is a training manual for the brigade rather than advice to a housekeeper: how to line a timbale, how to truss a bird, how to clean truffles. The peeling step belongs to that world of garnish: peeled truffle was sliced thin, stamped into rounds and crescents, and laid over chaud-froids and galantines in patterns, so an even black surface was worth the loss. The instruction to reserve the peelings in a saucepan is the older thrift running underneath the display, and it is the part of the method that has survived best.