Buy the best fresh-egg pasta you can find or make your own as below.

INGREDIENTS 

Fresh pasta:
300g flour, (Italian 00 grade, if available)
3 eggs
semolina flour for dusting
Sauce:
200ml cream
60g butter
60g grated parmesan
1 teaspoon truffle oil
20g fresh truffle

METHOD

To make pasta, mix flour and eggs together and knead into a dough. Divide into 4 and use a hand-operated pasta machine to successively roll each piece into a sheet.

Keep folding and rolling until dough is the consistency of soft leather, gradually reducing the space between rollers until sheet is very thin.

Dust finished sheets with semolina and cover with a tea towel as you go to stop them drying out. Use the cutting rollers to cut each sheet into tagliatelle or fettuccine and toss in semolina.

Heat cream with butter over a medium-low heat while stirring. Bring to a slow simmer and continue stirring for about 3 minutes until sauce thickens a little. Add parmesan and continue stirring until it melts. Remove from heat. Stir in truffle oil and add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water. (It will cook very fast once it returns to the boil so start checking after 1 minute.) Drain and toss through sauce. Serve on warm plates with fresh truffle shaved over the top. Serves 4-6

Sheryn Clothier experiments with growing truffles on her Waikato home

Recipe: Cauliflower and truffle soup

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