Black Truffles from Italy!

Palate Food + Wine was selling beautiful Black Truffles from Italy. We purchased a truffle that was 1 ½ oz. You can see from the quarter next to it that is fairly large.

We decided to make a Truffle Risotto. We went to The Cheese Store of Silverlake and picked up some Parmigiano Romano to blend into the risotto. We also got Vermont Cultured Butter. It is an excellent butter for cooking!

We made a standard risotto recipe and then used our truffle cutter to slice extremely thin slices on top of the risotto. It was delicious!

We started with a Caesar Salad, using The Zuni Café recipe from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. It was especially good this time. I think it was due to the fact that I used a little more garlic than usual. One of the joys of the salad is that you don’t break up the romaine lettuce and you eat it with your hands! The recipe is long, the time to make it is easy. We cheated and used store bought crutons!

It was a nice night and we ate outside once again on our deck. We plan to make fried risotto cakes with the leftover risotto. They are a staple at Campanile often on the menu. I always like them.

zuni caesar salad

Nothing strikes such a resonant note among Zuni Kitchen Alumni and current staff so much as memories of working the salad station, often referred to as "Caesar's Palace." The Caesar outsells every other salad, indeed every other dish, every day by a factor of three, and after three or four hours, the ritual of cracking, whisking, tasting, tweaking, tasting again, and so on takes its toll on the sturdiest palate.

There is nothing clever, original, or mysterious about this Caesar salad. The main "trick" we rely on is top-notch ingredients, freshly prepared. If you use a lesser cheese, or grate it too soon, you will get a different salad. If you squeeze the lemon juice ahead of time, it will have little or no fragrance. If the eggs are not particularly fresh, or you beat them into the dressing too far in advance, the dressing will not have body. Old or harsh-tasting garlic will dominate every other component and spoil the dressing. Likewise, fresh croutons are exciting; stale ones are dull. And look for salt-packed anchovies; more delicate and nutty than oil-packed fillets, they give the Zuni dressing its distinctive flavor. (But if you can't find salt-packed fish, and must use oil-packed ones, make sure you rinse them in warm water and press between clean towels to extract as much of that oil as possible. Even fillets packed in "good" olive oil can have a vaguely rancid taste or smell straight from the can or jar.) Finally, make the effort to use very fresh romaine; after a few days in the refrigerator, or on the shelves in the produce department, its sweetness fades and it can become muddy, metallic, or bitter.

As you assemble your impeccable ingredients, bear in mind that most vary from day to day and place to place. Red wine vinegar varies in flavor and acidity, as do olive oils. Lemons vary widely in size, juiciness, fragrance, and acidity. Romaine varies in sweetness, "amount of heart," and the texture of the leaf- smooth or crinkly. [The latter needs a lot more dressing per leaf.} And garlic varies in pungency. All this notwithstanding, the proportions below are good guidelines, if making tens of thousands of salads means anything. Start with them, then smell and taste each component each time you make the salad, adjust¬ing for your palate, and remember what you like and how you got there. If you know you love garlic, or anchovy, prepare extra, to make the adjusting easy,

I will be forever thankful to Paula Blotsky, who distilled our daily tweakings into these basic guidelines. Her name is on the greasy, dog-eared recipe card I wrote out fifteen years ago and still refer to.

FOR 4 TO 6 SERVINGS:

For the croutons:

A 4- to 5-ounce chunk or slice ofday-old levain or sourdough bread or
other chewy, peasant-style bread

To finish the salad:

1 to 3 heads romaine lettuce (to yield about 1-1/2 pounds usable leaves)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2/3 cup mild-tasting olive oil
About 1-1/2 tablespoons chopped salt-packed anchovy fillets (6 to 9 Fillets)
About 2 teaspoons chopped garlic

2 to 3 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil

Salt
2 large cold eggs
About 3 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (1-1/2 cups very lightlypacked)
Freshly cracked black pepper
About 1-1/2 lemons (to yield about 3 tablespoons juice)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Cut the bread into 1/2- to 3/4-inch cubes, toss with oil to coat evenly, salt lightly, toss again, and spread on a sheet pan. Roast, rotating the pan as needed, until golden all over, about 8 to 12 minuses. Taste a crouton; it should be well sea¬soned and slightly tender in the center. Leave to cool on the sheet pan.

Discard the leathery outer leaves of the romaine, then cut off the base of each head and wash and dry the leaves. Go through the leaves, trimming them of dis- ' colored, leathery, bruised, or wilted parts, but leave them whole. You need about 1-1/2 pounds of prepared leaves. Layer the leaves with towels if necessary to wick off every drop of water-wet lettuce will make an insipid salad. Refrigerate until ,5 just before dressing the salad.

Whisk together the vinegar, oil, anchovies, and garlic in a small mixing bowl. Add the eggs, a few sprinkles of the cheese, and lots of black pepper. Whisk to emulsify. Add the lemon juice, squeezing it through a strainer to catch the seeds. Whisk again, just to emulsify. Taste the dressing, first by itself and then on a leaf of lettuce, and adjust any of the seasonings to taste. If the romaine is very sweet, the dressing may already taste balanced and excellent ~ if it is mineraly, extra lemon or garlic may improve the flavor. If you like more anchovy, add it. (You should have about 1-1/2 cups of dressing.)

Place the romaine in a wide salad bowl. Add most of the dressing and fold and toss very thoroughly, taking care to separate the leaves and coat each surface with dressing, adding more as needed. Dust with most of the remaining cheese, add the croutons, and toss again. Taste and adjust as before. In general, the tastier the romaine, the less you will need to emphasize other flavors.

Pick out first the large, then the medium-sized, and then the smallest leaves and arrange on cold plates. Add a last drizzle of dressing to the bowl to moisten the croutons if they are at all dry and stir them around in the bowl to capture dressing on each of their faces and in their hollows. Distribute the croutons among the salads and finish each serving with a final dusting of cheese and more pepper.