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Black truffle in Chinese food

One can find European black truffle (tuber melanosporum) in a lot of things - foie gras, mushroom soup, or as shavings on pasta and scrambled eggs. They even come in a glass jar in many up market supermarkets. But all this is quintessentially European / Western. So to find black truffle appearing in Chinese menus was a bit of a novelty for me. My first encounter was early this week at the three-Michelin-starred Lung King Heen where a lobster tail was served in a Chinese champagne sauce on a bed of spinach with a sliver of the black stuff atop (see below). The taste was good and it worked, though I question its place in a Chinese restaurant.





Then to my surprise, I came across black truffle again. This time at Din Tai Fung in Causeway Bay. At a xiao lung bao cum noodle joint, one doesn't expect to see black truffles. Wrong. On the menu one can order a steamed basket of black truffle xiao lung bao at HK$138. So without hesitation I ordered one such basket (see below). Well, they tasted like the classical bao but laced with the aroma of the black truffle. It tasted surprisingly good - as the minced fatty pork and truffle created a rich and creamy taste.



One doesn't doubt the culinary uses of black truffles, nor its potential application in cuisine such as Chinese or Japanese. The interesting question here is whether these black truffles are of the European tuber melanosporum variety, or the Chinese tuber sinensis variety, or something else. And how will a surge in demand for this black stuff in the vast Chinese market impact on the world supply.
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