Black Truffle Oil - what should I do with it?

[lauren rae]

I was just given a bottle of black truffle oil (which tastes wonderful!) but i have nooooo idea what to use it for. Could you please give me some recipes or recommendations? Thanks!

[Mr Flibble]

If it contains truffles that were found using captive/farmed animals then you may wish to return it.

From wikipedia:

"Looking for truffles in open ground is almost always carried out with specially trained pigs or dogs. Pigs were the most used in the past, but nowadays farmers prefer to use dogs, which do not eat the truffles. Both pigs and dogs have keen senses of smell, but while dogs must be trained to the scent of truffles, female pigs or sows need no training whatsoever. This is due to a compound within the truffle which has an uncanny resemblance to the sex pheromone of male pigs or boars to which the sow is keenly attracted"

[lauren rae]

Well, i can't really return considering I was given a half used bottle from a friend that moved. Maybe i'll just search the net for something. It's not something I would buy, but i'm not going to pour out a $60 bottle of oil, you know?

[Tigerlily]

Give it to someone?

[Mr Flibble]

Well, obviously it's your choice what you do with it, however if it isn't a vegan ingredient then it shouldn't really be discussed in a vegan recipe section of a vegan forum. Personally I'd do as tigerlilly says and give it away.

[fiamma]

You can add a little to tomato pasta sauce, Lauren, it gives it an unusual flavour.

[Mr Flibble]

Interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/di...=1&oref=slogin

A TRUFFLE by any other name may smell as sweet, but what if that name is 2,4-dithiapentane? All across the country, in restaurants great and small, the “truffle” flavor advertised on menus is increasingly being supplied by truffle oil. What those menus don’t say is that, unlike real truffles, the aroma of truffle oil is not born in the earth. Most commercial truffle oils are concocted by mixing olive oil with one or more compounds like 2,4-dithiapentane (the most prominent of the hundreds of aromatic molecules that make the flavor of white truffles so exciting) that have been created in a laboratory; their one-dimensional flavor is also changing common understanding of how a truffle should taste.

I've no idea whether or not 2,4-dithiapentane is vegan/animal tested or not.