Tajarin with white truffle

Cook it at home: Alba tajarin with butter and white truffle

Tajarin are about the yolks. The dough is stiff and golden, kneaded long and cut thin. The sauce is only butter and pasta water, and the truffle goes on at the table. White truffle is never cooked.

Pans and tools

• Rolling pin or pasta machine
• Sharp long knife
• Wide sauté pan
• Large pot
• Truffle slicer or mandoline
• Kitchen scale

You’ll need

• For the pasta: 300 g (2 1/2 cups) 00 flour, plus extra for dusting
• 12 egg yolks (about 210 g), at room temperature
• 1 whole egg, for a dough that comes together (optional)
• 1 pinch fine salt
• For the sauce: 90 g (6 tbsp) good unsalted butter
• About 120 ml (1/2 cup) of the pasta water
• Fine salt for the water: 10 g per liter
• To finish: 15 to 20 g Alba white truffle (about 4 g per plate), brushed clean
• Freshly ground white pepper, only if you like it

Steps

1. Mound the flour on a board and make a well. Add the yolks, the optional egg and the salt. Break the yolks with a fork and pull in flour from the edges until a shaggy dough forms, about 3 minutes.
2. Knead hard for 10 minutes, pushing with the heel of your hand and folding, until the dough is smooth, firm and bright yellow, and springs back when pressed. It will feel dry at first. Keep going, it softens.
3. Wrap tightly in plastic and rest at room temperature for 1 hour, so the flour hydrates and the dough relaxes.
4. Cut the dough in four. Keep three wrapped. Flatten one piece and roll it with a pin or pasta machine down to 1 mm (about the thickness of a coin edge), dusting lightly. You should see your hand through it.
5. Dust the sheet with flour and fold it loosely into a flat roll. Cut across into ribbons 2 mm wide with a sharp knife, then shake them out into loose nests and dust with flour. Repeat. Rest the nests, uncovered, up to 30 minutes.
6. Bring 4 liters (4 quarts) of water to a rolling boil with the salt. In a wide pan, melt the butter over the lowest heat until it just foams, then switch off.
7. Drop the tajarin in. They cook in 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Taste one: it should be tender with a little bite. Lift the nests straight into the butter pan with tongs, keeping some water clinging. Reserve the pasta water.
8. Return the pan to low heat. Add 60 ml (1/4 cup) of pasta water and toss for 30 to 40 seconds until the butter and water turn into a glossy, creamy coat. Add a spoon more water if tight.
9. Divide among warm bowls at once. Shave the truffle over each bowl in thin, even slices with a truffle slicer (or a sharp mandoline set thin), about 4 g a plate, and serve immediately.
10. To taste the truffle, bring the bowls to the table and shave there so the smell reaches the room.

Contains: ['gluten', 'egg', 'dairy'].

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