Mark Ebbels on Truffles

Conversation with a chef: Hi Mark, how are you? Now, you spend a lot of time in the Yarra Valley and I've spoken to you before out there at TarraWarra, but now you're doing some different things. What is your experience with truffles?

Mark Ebbels: Well, on and off, I haven't used them every year, every menu. But it's something that I really look forward to every winter. It is a very unique offering, obviously, it's only available for a very short period of time, so, yeah.

So when you do come into truffle season and there is the opportunity to put them on the menu, what sort of dishes do you like to use them in?

I think that that really varies on the application and what do you want to get out of the truffle. We have quite a few different, when I say we, in the restaurants that I've worked in, in the past, we've had quite a few different variations. I really enjoy a bit of variety, I suppose, trying to get the most out each truffle. Shaving a truffle is a nice way to use it when you're getting a really thin slice where visually for the customers you can see a lot of the marbling of the truffle. They get to also talk to the chef or the server that's describing it, where it's from, and the characteristics of that sort of area is maybe popular for. And then when you shave a truffle with a thin mandolin over a hot dish, the truffle can gently warm and sort of give off a bit more truffle aroma, which creates a very specific sort of serving technique. I really like the interaction as well with the customers. They're paying a premium for a product, so when they get an additional service and show, it really resonates with people.

But another way to do it that I really enjoy, again, it's a specific application, for something like a canape or maybe a snack or a one bite sort of item, micro planing a truffle can be really beneficial because you can use smaller truffles. You don't get the wastage off the ends of a truffle if you're trying to shave it, but you're creating a lot of surface area. So when you get one bite in your mouth at once, that's a lot of release of flavour because of all that surface area.

Do you have a particular leaning towards a truffle producing region?

I think they've all got their own benefits, I suppose, and their own, their own characteristics that are enjoyable. I really like Buxton truffles, but that is mainly because we also really enjoy using Yarra Valley produce out here. It's just fantastic and it's a great story and they're also a really high-quality product. I'm not a hundred percent sure what his brand is actually. He's got a viticulturist business out here in Yarra Valley. He happens to grow truffles on his property.

But then the other element as well with serving truffles is, say if we were going to do something like a risotto, maybe a relatively neutral flavoured one, something like a Milanese or maybe even a mushroom risotto as much as everybody does it and it's been flogged to death, would be dicing more, even a pasta dish, dicing the truffles into smaller pieces and then folding it through the dish at the end so that you end up encapsulating flavour in each of those diced pieces of truffle so that when the customer eats it, they don't really experience palate fatigue from such a strong truffle flavour that's omnipresent. It comes in bursts. And I think you can get a lot more out of flavours doing that. It becomes a more interesting eating experience.

Can you go wrong with truffles? Do you have to be really careful with the way you deal with them?

It depends on what you define by wrong. I suppose everyone's level of enjoyment is specific to them. But I think not utilising it properly, not getting the best out of it and basically wasting the money, if that makes sense. Using it in a way where you're not really enhancing the truffle's actual characteristics and beautiful flavour profile. You're trying to force it somewhere where it doesn't really fit, maybe cooking a fresh truffle too much and boiling off or evaporating all of that beautiful flavour and aroma. Maybe serving it in too larger pieces, to just take a bite of truffle by itself, it's not really that enjoyable an experience. You need the right texture and the right thickness, the right temperature, it makes it much more enjoyable. The aroma is a huge part of it. Obviously. So to just have a cold slice of truffle, it can be a little bit off-putting actually. It's a bit of a strange texture.

You've been doing some consulting and some cooking at Reem, which has some Asian leanings. Would you use truffles in Asian cuisine?

Definitely. Re'em is, and this is a bit of an off-putting word to use these days for the connotations of it, but it is similar to fusion. We have a Chinese leaning menu, but it is largely encapsulated in a western offering. We're using ingredients and techniques and stories as well that relate back to Helen and Joey's culinary heritage and where they grew up in China in Xinghua for Helen and Szechuan province for Joey, we're incorporating that into modern Australian, whatever that really means, dishes that are approachable for your everyday consumer. It isn't a by any stretch of Chinese restaurant. But it certainly has a lot of those characteristics that are familiar woven throughout the menu and the dishes. We haven't got any truffles yet because Adrian hasn't started harvesting yet. It's probably got about a month to go. But we will be using truffle. We're thinking of doing truffle ice cream. Both Abe and I have had truffle ice creams before in the past that have been really delicious. So we think that that could work quite well. We have a dinner coming up with Aurum Poultry for Fireside Yarra Valley in July. So this should be a really exciting dinner actually.

But beyond that, we, as we evolve the menu, we change it maybe every couple of months we change a couple of dishes and then the ones that really speak to us, that work well with the story of the restaurant that fit truffle, we will definitely be getting something to sell on to the customers.

It must be so lovely working out there because you really get to see the delineation of the seasons, don't you? Because it's just all so reflected in in nature out there.

It's very clear, especially for myself. I get a lot of people out here actually as well that have vegetable gardens, they grow a lot of their own food or even have certain fruit trees in the yard. It really makes it clear that when certain seasons arrive. Where I live, which is at the end of the Great Dividing Range. It's about 10 minutes out of the Yarra Valley. And the difference between when our products and our farm coming to season compared to when the ones in the kitchen gardens and the Yarra Valley coming to season is astonishing for something that's only 10 minutes away. Its a different climate. Some seasons we are maybe a month behind. When we start getting nice tomatoes or raspberries. There are a lot of factors in play there.

That's fantastic. Thank you. It's lovely to talk to you again.

Re'em, 12-14 spring Lane, Gruyere