Some useful tips on how to preserve your Fresh Black Summer Truffles.
In Italy also called SCORZONE
The Black Summer Truffle is a very delicate food and for this reason, it is also highly perishable.
Ideally it is best to consume immediately but obviously, this is not always possible. What can you do then, to preserve your Scorzone without damaging it as well as preserve its delicious and unique aroma?
✔ A first method for storing Scorzone (perfect if you intend to use it within a few days) is to wrap it in a sheet of kitchen paper or, if you don’t have any available at the moment, inside a cotton handkerchief. Once this is done, you will have to put your wrapped truffle in an airtight glass jar or container and place it in the refrigerator. With this method, in fact, you will be sure to preserve all the moisture present inside your truffle -that which gives it its unique flavour. Frequently check the condition of the black truffle, remembering to replace the paper or handkerchief in which you wrapped it every two to three days maximum.
✔ A second effective technique to best preserve your Scorzone is to put it in oil. Doing so is very simple: once you have cut your truffle into slices, insert the latter into a glass jar and cover them entirely with olive oil (please use good quality Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil). Close the jar tightly with its lid and place it in your refrigerator. A variant of this technique is where the oil is replaced with butter: more specifically, you will have to dip the slices of black summer truffle in melted butter at room temperature. Once this is done, place everything in a glass jar and store it in the refrigerator.
✔ Another very common technique for the preservation of black truffle is to preserve in the form … of a sauce! Again in this case, the preparation of the Scorzone sauce is really easy: grate your black truffle and add a few tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of pepper and salt, mixing everything until you get a nice homogeneous mixture.
✔ Do you know that you can also keep your black summer truffles in the freezer?
To do this, you will need to insert truffles, whole or grated, inside a transparent bag for food storage. To avoid the formation of ice, which could cause the loss of its characteristic scent, remember to use a vacuum machine, in order to eliminate all the air present in the bag. Use this method if you have no way of consuming your truffles within a few days. If, in fact, storing Scorzone in the freezer has the undoubted advantage of being able to use them for a long time, on the other hand this will inevitably lead, in the long run, to a loss of their characteristic scent. To try to overcome this inconvenience, you can put a small handful of coarse salt in the bag, together with the truffles. If you have decided to use this method of preservation, remember that, once you have taken your black truffles out of the freezer, you will have to use them directly frozen: defrosting them, in fact, would mean making it take on a rubbery texture that would make it difficult to cut it into slices.
✔ Another common method for the preservation of black truffles is to keep them stored under rice. This may seem like a strange technique, but it’s actually highly effective and easy to do. In fact, you will only have to insert the whole truffle inside a glass container and cover it entirely with rice. Just close the jar tightly with the lid and place it in the refrigerator. With this method you will get two advantages: in addition to preserving your Scorzone, you will not be forced to throw away the rice: the latter, in fact, having now been flavoured with truffles, will be perfect for making excellent risottos (consult our recipes).
✔ In fact, of all the preservation methods we have proposed so far, this is the one we most recommend you use: TUBER-PACK® PACKAGING FOR TRUFFLES
Tuber-pack® is an elegant, practical and remarkably hygienic packaging and storage method for truffles. With Tuber-pack ® is possible to show the truffle without touching it and thanks to the barrier bag* it stops the odour, for a better transport and preservation.
Tuber-pack® lengthens truffle life, if stored at right temperature; moreover, the weight loss is about 3% against the usual 10-15% when stored in open air. With Tuber-pack® at the moment of usage the truffle resurrects to just as was when picked up, with its seductive flavour fully in tact. We offer the choice to buy it with or without your fresh truffle check our store.
How long can the fresh black truffles be kept?
We have shown you the best techniques to preserve your black summer truffles: but for how long can you do it? This question does not have a singular answer: depending on the method you decide to use to preserve your Scorzone, the storage period will be different.
If, for example, you have decided to keep your truffles in the refrigerator, wrapped in kitchen paper or in a cotton handkerchief, know that its storage period will be short: from a minimum of six to a maximum of eight days.
If, then, you have decided to opt for the preservation of the truffle by putting it in oil, you can use it within ten days. The variant in which butter is used instead of oil, on the other hand, will allow you to keep your truffle for up to two months.
Always, ten days is the maximum time within which you can keep your black truffles in the form of a sauce.
Finally, if you have decided to put your black summer truffles under rice, they can be stored for a maximum of a few days. This is due to the fact that rice, if on the one hand it has the ability to keep the typical aroma of Scorzone intact, on the other hand it tends to dry it, because it risks absorbing all the humidity inside it in a short time, thus making the truffles unusable.