[Sca-cooks] Fungi

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

-------Original Message-------
From: "Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius at verizon.net>
I think maybe the kind of richness and flavor a truffle has is going to be hard to find in a mushroom without a rather aggressive flavor of its own, if you know what I mean, so substituting something close is going to be more like substituting mushrooms-and-truffles for truffles.

I think maybe fresh shiitakes might be your best bet, or fresh 
cep/porcinis, with truffle oil. You need something firm and rich, but not powerfully mushroomy, so something like morels I wouldn't recommend.

Maybe you could share your recipe, and we could get a better idea of how best to substitute.
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It's from de Nola:

CAPIROTADAS OF TRUFFLES
CAPIROTADAS DE TOFERAS O CRIADAS DE TIERRA O TURMAS
 
You will take truffles or criadas de tierra, and scald them well with boiling water; and give them a boil with that same 
water; and then peel off the first peel or membrane, and cut them in round slices.  And gently fry them with good fat 
bacon.  And then take a few almonds, and pine nuts, and hazelnuts, and toasted bread, and grind all this, and with the 
fattest broth strain it quite thick; and when it is strained, set it inside a pot, and cast in all ground spices, and put in a 
little sugar, and set it to cook.  And when it boils, put in the truffles so that they will finish cooking with this sauce.  
And when the truffles or criadas are cooked, prepare dishes, and cast sugar and cinnamon on them, and a little broth, 
which should be thick, from the pot.  And if you wish to eat them fried without the sauce, do this: when they have been 
gently fried, cast in a little pepper and vinegar; and so they cook the truffles; but above all they are better when they are 
roasted between two hot cinders, and soaked in vinegar; and these are the truffles.
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The recipe uses three different terms for truffles, and I suspect that these may be different varieties.  I was thinking of doing the "fried with pepper and vinegar" version.

"Capirotada" is normally a dish made with roasted fowl, layered with slices of bread, and served with a covering sauce.  (The name comes from a word meaning a kind of cape.)  Therefore, though this recipe doesn't say so, I'd be inclined to serve the "truffles" over sops.

Brighid ni Chiarain