Is a truffle gluten free?

First of all, we want to clarify what gluten is and why some people do not tolerate gluten:

What are gluten?

It is also called glue protein. Gluten is the term for certain proteins found in the grain of some types of grain. The glue makes the dough slightly rubbery and easy to shape, and it is also important for the baking properties of a dough.

Examples of foods that contain gluten are:

Wheat, spelled, einkorn, durum wheat, kamut, emmer

Examples of low gluten foods are:

Rye, oats, barley, millet

There are also foods that are completely gluten-free:

Teff, corn, rice, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat

But be careful! Food that says “gluten-free” on the packaging may still contain glue, up to a maximum of 20 mg per kg. I therefore recommend celiac patients to prepare the meals themselves to make sure that the dishes are 100% gluten-free.

What Exactly Is Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease is a disease of the intestinal mucosa, which regularly causes inflammation and makes treatment essential. They are also called gluten intolerance. This term means a mixture of autoimmune disease and allergy. If gluten intolerance appears for the first time in childhood, it is referred to as celiac disease, in adults it is referred to as indigenous sprue. Despite the trend in the food industry to bring gluten-free products to market, only about 1 percent of the population actually suffer from this disease. 

Truffle and gluten free

All types of truffles contain proteins, fiber, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, but no wheat-like components, since truffles are mushrooms and genetically do not belong to the plants! In addition, truffles have anti-inflammatory properties. Truffles even contain antioxidants that bind harmful free radicals. Free radicals damage cells in the body and this in turn increases the risk of developing cancer. That is to say, truffles don't just have anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and cancer-minimizing properties. No. Those who regularly consume truffles also reduce the risk of diabetes, not only because truffles also contain no sugar (s), they improve the activity of the insulin cells. Truffles strengthen the immune system, minimize certain disease risks and reduce depression. In summary, truffles are a superfood!

Gluten free Pasta recipe with truffle

60g buckwheat flour or 200g chickpea flour

40g potato starch 2 eggs

10g flaxseed flour 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

6-8 tbsp lukewarm water 1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of salt

Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and mix. Then make a well in the middle with a soup spoon. There, add the lukewarm water with the vegetable oil or the eggs and knead everything into a smooth dough by hand for about 10 minutes. Then shape the dough into a ball and wrap it in cling film. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Then divide the dough ball into manageable pieces. Sprinkle some flour on a clean table and roll out the first dough with the rolling pin into a thin (1-3mm thick) dough. (In this step you could also work grated black truffles into the dough. I think, however, that the truffle taste comes out better with raw truffles. So I recommend slicing the fresh truffles onto the pasta just before serving.)

If you don't have a pasta machine at home, you can also make ribbon noodles by hand. Sprinkle the rolled out dough cloth with flour and twist it into a loose roll. Cut the rolling pin crosswise into pieces about 1cm wide. Separate the rolled up noodle and let it air-dry for 30 minutes at room temperature before adding it to boiling, lightly salted water. 3 liters of cooking water would be ideal for 500g of pasta. Cook for about 4 to 5 minutes, until the pasta is cooked, sometimes stirring the pasta with a wooden spoon so that it doesn't stick together. Strain the homemade noodles and place them on the plate. Fold some butter or olive oil into the pasta and garnish with freshly grated truffles (approx. 25 grams per person and plate) and with freshly grated Parmesan. Of course, you can also rub vegan hard cheese over the truffle noodles.

Please use tasteless oils for the dough, because in this case the oil is only used as a binding agent and makes the dough smoother. No other taste should surpass the truffle aroma.

Coloring: If you want to color the pasta, you can either use chemical food coloring. Or natural gluten-free dyes such as red beet juice, turmeric or spinach. You can use it to create a beautiful colorful pasta plate.

By the way: You can easily make the flaxseed flour yourself from the flaxseed using a mill. The finer the flour is ground, the more suitable it is for pasta. Otherwise the pasta dough will be coarse and inelastic.

Storage tip for the gluten-free pasta

Frozen gluten-free pasta:

The freshly cooked pasta can be frozen in portions. To do this, sprinkle the pasta with a little rice flour and shape into a nest. Take a large container and place a piece of parchment paper between the noodle nests so that the pasta does not stick to its neighbor.

Dried gluten-free pasta:

To do this, hang the tagliatelle (do not cook) on a pasta dryer and let it dry until the pasta strips have become completely hard and stiff. This can take 2 to 4 days. Then store the dried tagliatelle in a container at cellar temperatures. They can then be kept for about 1 year. If you don't have a pasta dryer at hand, you can either build it yourself from thin wooden sticks or you can simply hang the pasta over the clothes horse. Room temperature is best for drying. In summer you can also dry the pasta in the sun. Beware, some animals like to snack! So don't let the pasta strips out of your sight.

By the way, frozen or dried pasta takes about 1 minute longer to cook.

The Trüffelhang.at team wishes you a lot of fun cooking gluten-free pasta with truffles.