Truffled Three-Cheeseburger

When most people think of truffles, they think of a special occasion, highly seasonal, highly expensive pure indulgence food. Fair enough. When chefs think of Truffles, they think of intense flavours, evocative dishes, and small profit margins! In our world, truffles are for sharing and celebrating. Their allure need not be lionised, indulgence shared is indulgence doubled. The largest-ever Italian white truffle ever found, a whopping 1.2kg valued at about 1.2 million euros, was not sold by the fortunate forager that unearthed it. He chose to throw a feast for the whole village and the community consumed the behemoth in a single sitting. I love that story. It speaks to everything we should value about great food and our community.

Farmgate Festival celebrates the West Tamar’s farming community each spring by inviting guests onto the farms to get to know the growers and makers of their favourite Tassie foods. Amazing, obviously, but it presents something of a challenge to a farm like Tamar Valley Truffles. How to celebrate something that is completely out of season? How to show you that truffles can be a year-round affair? What is a delicious and approachable way to make that happen?

Enter the Truffled Three cheeseburger! Amazing. Featuring a technique for making your burger tender, properly meaty and well-textured, a cheeky cheese recipe that doubles as a dip, and how to incorporate truffle into all of it for delicious results.

Ingredients – makes 6 x 150-160 gram burgers

  • 1kg grams of beef mince from your favourite Harvest Butcher
  • 4 Burger buns form your favourite Harvest Baker
  • There are no candlestick makers
  • 1 tsp + 3 tbsp of olive oil
  • 1 brown onion from your favourite Harvest Grocer
  • 1 tbsp Pinch of Tasmania pepperberry salt
  • 3 tbsp TVT truffle paste
  • 1 TVT truffle brie wheel (at room temperature) + 2 tbsp TVT truffle paste
  • 120 grams grated TVT truffled cheddar
  • 120 grams grated of Bierkase from Elgaar farm
  • Greens from Felds Farm
  • ½ a red onion, finely sliced, from your favourite Harvest Greengrocer
  • 1 Jar of cucumber pickles from Taste of Tam O’Shanter

Method

  • Dice to brown onion in the 1 tsp of olive oil and gently sauté until translucent. Set aside to cool
  • Place the beef and pepperberry salt into a bowl and incorporate. Then, using your hands, ball the beef up and continually throw it into the bowl with some force until you can see that be mixture is becoming homogenous. About 5 to 7 minutes.
  • Mix in the 3 tbsp of truffle paste and the sauteed onion. Set aside to rest.
  • While resting the meat, remove the rind from the truffle brie and dice into 2cm cubes. Place the cubes of brie and the 2 tbsp of truffle paste into the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high until very pale and fluffy, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Set aside.
  • Fry the burgers in the 3 tbsp of olive oil until just cooked through, flipping once. Add the grated truffled cheddar and Tilsit to the top of the burgers after the flip, to melt the cheese a little. 
  • While the burgers are cooking, toast the buns, spreading the top with the truffled whipped brie and the bottom with your favourite relish.
  •  Place the burger on the bottom of the bun and garnish with the sliced red onion, pickles and leaves
  • Put the lid on, serve, bask in the adulation of your guests.

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