[ ./recipes/pasta/tagliolini-al-tartufo-nero.md ]
★ ITALIAN · PASTA
Tagliolini al Tartufo Nero.
SERVES
2
TOTAL
20m
ACTIVE
20m
LVL
MEDIUM
// SUMMARY
Fresh black truffle, butter, Parmigiano and nothing else. The whole dish is an exercise in restraint: the butter is warmed rather than cooked so the truffle gives up its aroma without losing it, and the sauce is an emulsion of that butter with starchy pasta water. No cream, no garlic — both bury the thing you paid for.
// INGREDIENTS
| 200 | g | tagliolini, or very fine tagliatelle |
| — 20–30 g fresh black truffle | ||
| 50 | g | butter |
| — 30–40 g Parmigiano Reggiano, very finely grated | ||
| 150 | ml | reserved pasta cooking water |
| — Fine sea salt | ||
| — Freshly ground black pepper | ||
// METHOD
- 01
Brush the truffle clean. Only rinse it briefly under cold water if it is genuinely dirty, and dry it immediately. Shave it very thinly.
- 02
Melt the butter in a large pan over very low heat and add about two thirds of the shaved truffle. Do not fry it — the butter should stay blonde and barely bubble. Leave it to infuse while the pasta cooks.
- 03
Cook the tagliolini in plenty of well-salted water and pull it out about 1 minute before al dente. Fresh tagliolini may need only 60–90 seconds in total, so stay with it.
- 04
Reserve about 150 ml of the cooking water before draining.
- 05
Add the pasta to the truffle butter with a good splash of pasta water and toss the pan vigorously to bring the fat and water together.
- 06
Turn off the heat, then work in the Parmigiano a little at a time, tossing constantly. The sauce should turn glossy and coat the strands — it should not taste of cheese.
- 07
Loosen with more pasta water if it tightens. Serve on warmed plates and shave the remaining truffle generously over the top. Finish with black pepper.
// NOTES
- — Heat control is the whole technique. Hold black truffle over high heat for minutes and you cook off the volatile aromatics you are paying for.
- — Warm the plates. This dish goes cold and claggy faster than almost any other pasta.
- — If your truffle turns out to be weak, a teaspoon of truffle butter stirred in at the end will lift it. With a good fresh one, leave it out.
- — Grate the Parmigiano on a Microplane — coarser gratings sit in the sauce instead of melting into it.
- — Store fresh truffle in a sealed jar in the fridge wrapped in kitchen paper, and change the paper daily. Use it within 4–5 days.
// VARIATIONS
- → With egg yolk: Whisk one yolk into the pasta water off the heat before the cheese, for a richer, carbonara-adjacent sauce.
- → Tartufo bianco: For white truffle, skip the infusion entirely — melt plain butter, emulsify, and shave all of the truffle raw over the finished plate.