When fine ingredients come your way, it’s time to let the imagination have free rein. Black truffles, noir soba noodles, let’s call that a really good start. But the other hero of this dish is Twee Jonge Gezellen’s utterly splendid Krone Night Nectar Cap Classique. Dry, biscuity, buttery, glorious.

Don’t tell them, but half a bottle of it went into this sauce.

This is extravagant, and under normal circumstances it would be a terrible waste of a very fine wine. But, luckily, I write about food, so it’s incumbent upon me to play with the fine ingredients that land on my desk occasionally. It’s work. It’s research. Somebody has to do it.

I wrote recently about my foray to Johannesburg which inspired this story, and went on to create this recipe for black truffle ice cream. This time, I used the truffle a little more traditionally, in a savoury dish. I also had black soba noodles, which are silky and super-slim. All they need is a little pool of luxurious sauce and you have a meal.

But I went a notch further and added butter to the mix, going from the utterly sublime to the deliciously ridiculous.

Ingredients

375 ml Krone Night Nectar Blanc de Blancs 2018

250 g black rice soba noodles

1 black summer truffle, finely chopped

100 g salted butter

1 ladleful of noodle water

Salt and white pepper to taste

Method

Reduce the Cap Classique in a saucepan on a moderate heat until reduced by half and the bubbles have evaporated. The resulting liquor is truly a nectar worthy of the angels. 

Now, add the butter, stir while it melts, then add the chopped truffle to this, simmer for three minutes, turn off the heat and leave it to steep. The buttery liquor will take on the truffle flavour.

Cook the noodles in boiling water for 5 minutes. Reserve a ladleful of the water. Drain the noodles and refresh in cold water, then drain again.

Add the ladleful of noodle water to the sauce and season very lightly with salt and white pepper. Toss the noodles through it and serve, swoon and sigh. Make sure to keep the second half of the bottle to sip while you eat. DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Champion 2021. His book, foodSTUFF, is available in the DM Shop or, if sold out, directly from him. Buy it here. 

Mervyn Gers Ceramics supplies dinnerware for the styling of some TGIFood shoots. 

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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