How is broken Périgord black truffle made?
Broken black truffle is a product that we make from pieces, shards or remains of black truffles that cannot be sold fresh. These are often parts of the truffle that are a little soft or what we have left when we cut beautiful pieces of fresh truffle. These "shards" or small pieces of truffles are sterilized in season, every week, in "mother boxes", containing around 2kg of black truffles.
A mother box made at the start of the season will present a clearer and less aromatic product than a mother box made in February, at the height of the season.
When we produce our broken pieces, depending on the type of broken pieces ("standard" or "artisanal", like the one we offer you in small format ), we use mother boxes from various periods, even years, to make, in the manner of oenologists, blends of black truffles , with the aim of offering consistent quality.
What are the criteria that define a good broken truffle?
The quality of the breakage will depend on the quality of the raw material, that is to say the quality of the truffles placed in mother boxes, but also on the "modus operandi" of manufacturing.
Raw materials :
If the mother boxes of truffles used are all from the beginning of the season, the breakage will be not very aromatic and very clear.
Operation mode :
To make broken truffles, we grind truffles from mother boxes. And this is where the operating method can have an impact on the quality of the product. At Maison Henras, we grind the truffle after draining it. Our manufacturing process requires the use of 900 g of crushed truffles then truffle juice (from the mother box), added to the casing, to obtain 1 kg net drained of broken pieces.
In fact, the crushed truffle which will be put in a box and sent back for sterilization will swell during cooking and capture part of the integrated juice, and gain weight. 900 g when packed will give 1 kg of cleanly drained broken pieces after this new sterilization phase.
Some truffle manufacturers will, for their part, grind 500g of truffle for a long time with 500g of water and obtain a mixture which will have the appearance of a “mush”. This porridge should not be qualified as "Brisure", but French regulations unfortunately do not define the brokenness of canned truffle using objective criteria. They therefore obtain 1 kg of broken material from 500 g of material...all with a "floating" texture.
How can we ensure that the broken stock we use is of quality?
1/ First of all, you can look at the color: the lighter a piece of black truffle is, the more it was made with early season truffles, which we call "early truffles" which are not very aromatic.
2/ The texture and in particular the way it drains will tell you: the more easily it drains, the less it will have been crushed, therefore the less liquid will have been integrated and this will be a good sign.
3/ A "boiled or pureed" texture is also a sign of a low quality broken material, which will have been ground for a long time with liquid, it is imperative that you be able to see what we call "inclusions", this that is to say small, very distinct shards of truffles.
We hope that these explanations will help you better choose your broken truffle.