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    Home » Recipes » Italian

    Updated: Jul 28, 2019 by Marc · 47 Comments

    Chocolate Truffle Tagliatelle

    Chocolate infused tagliatelle pasta with black truffles, chestnuts cacao nibs and gruyere cheese. Simple and tasty.
    Recipe Pin

    When I'm in a creative rut and the ideas are flowing about as fast as a new jar of ketchup, I try to make myself see an old ingredient with new eyes. I imagine myself as a chef from a foreign land who's never laid tastebuds on the ingredient, throwing out all preconceptions of how it should or shouldn't be used. This process often results in new and interesting combinations and exposes the hidden walls of convention that hold us all prisoner.

    Take chocolate for example, it's a word that conjures images of sweet decadence and may as well be a synonym for dessert. But at its core, the roasted cocao beans that chocolate is made of could be described with adjectives such as earthy, nutty, and warm. These are words that don't necessarily go with "sweet" and could even be used to describe other ingredients such as wheat, mushrooms, and aged cheese. So what can you make from cacao, wheat, mushrooms and aged cheese?

    Yep, you guessed it, I put it in the pasta. This isn't some sweet mimicry of a pasta used in a dessert, I'm talking about a real, savoury pasta like one you might find in a Trattoria in Emilia-Romagna. A minimalist preparation with each ingredient contributing to the dish without being an intrusive prima donna stealing the spotlight for itself.

    The noodles have a wonderful toothsome chew and nutty flavour, thanks to the chapati flour and cocoa powder. It doesn't taste overtly of chocolate but it's subtly present and the cacao nibs add an edge to the dish from both a textural and flavour perspective. Roasted chestnuts bring a sweet creamy element that's a nice contrast to the sharp, savoury flavours pervading the dish. Gruyere cheese adds salt, umami, and depth, and finally the shaved black truffles marries all the earthy tastes under one luxurious unifying flavour.

    It's a chocoholics dream, and even chocolate haters should have something good to say about this one. It's not the simplest pasta I've ever come up with (although I did make it on a weeknight), but it's quite possibly the tastiest pasta I've ever made.

    📖 Recipe

    Chocolate Truffle Tagliatelle

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    Units

    Ingredients 

    • 1 cup chapati flour (can be found at Indian grocery stores)
    • ½ cups all-purpose flour
    • 2 tablespoons cocoa unsweetened powder sifted
    • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
    • 2 eggs large
    • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • 2.5 ounces gruyere cheese freshly grated
    • 2 tablespoons cacao roasted nibs
    • 10 chestnuts roasted crumbled
    • 1.5 ounces truffle black
    • sea salt smoked
    • parsley minced for garnish

    Instructions

    • Knead flours, cocoa, salt and eggs together until combined, the dough will still be crumbly. Add water, one teaspoon at a time until the dough holds together without being sticky. Continue kneading until the dough takes on a satiny sheen and is very elastic (2-4 minutes). Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour at room temperature.
    • Start heating a large pot of salted water. Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces then run it through a pasta roller to the second to the last setting (#7 on a Kitchenaid). After rolling each sheet of pasta out, dust it generously with flour and hang. When you're done rolling out the pasta, switch to the tagliatelle cutter attachment and cut the pasta, dust with flour again and hang.
    • When the water comes to a boil, add all the pasta at once. It will take less than a minute to cook, so be prepared with a colander. When it's al dente, drain the pasta and shake off any excess water. Transfer the cooked pasta to a bowl and drizzle with the olive oil. Add the cheese, cacao nibs, chestnuts and shave the truffle on top. Toss the pasta to evenly distribute everything.
    • Plate, then garnish with a sprinkle of parsley and a pinch of smoked sea salt.
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      Recipe Rating




    1. Muneeba says

      April 05, 2010 at 8:16 pm

      I'm a huge fan of your beautiful blog ... can't believe I haven't been here for a while .. my bad! But my goodness, look at this sensational pasta ... I'm hooked again!

      Reply
    2. Muneeba says

      April 06, 2010 at 1:16 am

      I'm a huge fan of your beautiful blog ... can't believe I haven't been here for a while .. my bad! But my goodness, look at this sensational pasta ... I'm hooked again!

      Reply
    3. Claudia says

      April 08, 2010 at 1:08 am

      Outrageous Marc, I want to try making this. We have no Indian markets here, so what else would work for the chapati flour?

      Reply
    4. Marc Matsumoto says

      April 08, 2010 at 1:33 am

      Hi Claudia, you could just use regular all-purpose, or if you can getyour hands on semolina do a 50/50 mixture of semolina and all-purpose.

      Reply
    5. colloquial cook says

      April 08, 2010 at 6:09 am

      You might get your hand slapped by a grumpy Emilia Romagna mamma for putting Gruyère on your pasta. It's ok, I can tackle the mamma before she attacks you and you could reward my heroic action with a taste of your choco-truffle pasta 🙂

      Reply
    6. Marc Matsumoto says

      April 08, 2010 at 6:33 am

      Hi Claudia, you could just use regular all-purpose, or if you can getyour hands on semolina do a 50/50 mixture of semolina and all-purpose.

      Reply
    7. colloquial cook says

      April 08, 2010 at 11:09 am

      You might get your hand slapped by a grumpy Emilia Romagna mamma for putting Gruyère on your pasta. It's ok, I can tackle the mamma before she attacks you and you could reward my heroic action with a taste of your choco-truffle pasta 🙂

      Reply
    8. Alexandra says

      April 14, 2010 at 6:13 am

      I hope this isn't a dumb question. I live in San Francisco. Where can I get black truffles?

      Reply
    9. Alexandra says

      April 14, 2010 at 11:13 am

      I hope this isn't a dumb question. I live in San Francisco. Where can I get black truffles?

      Reply
    10. Marc Matsumoto says

      April 14, 2010 at 1:46 pm

      Not dumb at all, they aren't the easiest thing to find. If you go to aspecialty foods store, they often have them jarred in olive oil. Trylooking around the Ferry Building, my guess is that one of the storesthere will have them. I'm pretty sure I've also seen fresh ones at themushroom store there. If all else fails, try looking online there's alot of places that will ship anywhere in the country. I got mine fromhttps://www.gourmetattitude.com/

      Reply
    11. Marc Matsumoto says

      April 14, 2010 at 6:46 pm

      Not dumb at all, they aren't the easiest thing to find. If you go to aspecialty foods store, they often have them jarred in olive oil. Trylooking around the Ferry Building, my guess is that one of the storesthere will have them. I'm pretty sure I've also seen fresh ones at themushroom store there. If all else fails, try looking online there's alot of places that will ship anywhere in the country. I got mine fromhttps://www.gourmetattitude.com/

      Reply
    12. Pops Masch says

      May 23, 2011 at 2:31 am

      Ridiculous David "Pops" Masch

      Reply
    13. Cherrios73 says

      July 19, 2011 at 10:22 pm

      Try Dean & Deluca. They sell them by the ounce.

      Reply
    14. niamh says

      February 13, 2013 at 10:12 am

      i think it looks disgusting , who would have chocolate pasta

      Reply
    15. amy says

      February 13, 2013 at 10:16 am

      pasta is ment to be savoury ........ its abit dumb?

      Reply
    16. niamh says

      February 13, 2013 at 2:14 pm

      where would buy this food?

      Reply
    17. Joe says

      April 15, 2015 at 1:04 pm

      So you didn't mention the chestnuts. Do we just throw them away?

      Reply
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