Farm Fresh Truffles

Maverick, Zara, Inca, Polly and Frankie are the five dogs who find the truffles. They work across two family farms in the Pemberton region. By the farms' own account, more than 2,000 hazelnut and oak trees were planted there around twelve years ago as hosts for black truffle.

A black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, is the underground fruiting body of a fungus that grows in association with its host trees. Nothing shows above the soil. You plant the trees, you wait, and then you need a trained nose to tell you where to dig. The two families behind Farm Fresh Truffles, named on their site as Tom, Elke, Nigel and Cathy, have done the planting and the waiting, and the dogs do the finding.

What they make for the pantry is a black truffle sea salt. It combines their own fresh black truffle with pyramid flake sea salt from the Loddon Plains in Victoria, and the maker states that it contains no artificial flavours or additives.

Truffle salt is a finishing salt, used at the end, not during the cooking. A pinch goes over scrambled eggs, buttered pasta, mashed potato, hot chips, or a steak while it rests. A small amount is the usual rule with truffle, and a salt is one of the simpler ways to keep some in the cupboard.

For anything else about the farms, the maker's own site is the place to start.