The One Ingredient Our Test Kitchen Chef Uses to Make Any Dinner Special

Our test kitchen chef, Josh, isn't immune to a little treat-yourself cooking. I mean, who isn't? We've all got those foods we can't turn away whether it's an gooey, under-baked chocolate chip cookie or a jar of flaky pink salt crystals or, say, caviar.

One such indulgence recently entered our shop and it happened to catch Josh's eye. Potentially, it's the most indulgent of all indulgences: truffles. But not any truffles—canned ones. The good thing here is that truffles in a can are half the price and can be enjoyed in any season. That, my friends, is a twofer.

The purveyors, Noble Handcrafted, are a fifth-generation truffle dynasty (!!!). Culled from the mountains of Northern Italy, the truffles are packed in a jar with their own juices so they come out fresh, earthy, and aromatic.

Josh put those truffles to use—much to the delight of everyone in the office—and pulled together a dark-and-jammy, buttery-rich truffle sauce that he drizzled over rounds of pink beef tenderloin.

"The sauce in this recipe is derivative of the sauce found in the classic French dish Tournados Rossini," he says. "It has the deep savory black truffle flavor of a classic French sauce, yet it is much easier to prepare. Most traditional French sauces take hours to prepare and years to master. Yet this recipe features chicken stock instead of demi-glace, and dry sherry replaces madeira. What you get is a rich and luxurious sauce that has all the flavor of a French classic with only a fraction of the time and effort."

How would you put a jar of truffles to good use? Dream something up in the comments below.