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Centre-Val de Loire
Potato slices, onion, parsley and cream beneath golden pastry: truffiat is the pie of Berry, and its name comes from "treuffes", potatoes in the Berrichon dialect.
Traditional dish from Centre-Val de Loire.
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Truffiat is a pie: a base and lid of puff pastry enclosing potatoes, onions, parsley and crème fraîche. It is also known as tourte berrichonne. While the name may recall truffles, it actually refers to a potato dish: the Berrichon dialect has several words for the tuber—"patache", "tartouffe", "treffe" or "treuffe", "truche" or "truffe"—and "truffat, truffiat" is defined in a word as "pâté aux pommes de terre".
It is therefore from "treuffe", an old Berrichon word for potato, that the dish takes its name, and it is regarded as a traditional dish of the Berry countryside.
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The Issoudun tourist office considers it a "monument of Berry gastronomy", popular for making at weekends, among friends or for special occasions. A food blog counts it among the emblematic dishes of Berry cuisine.
In Indre, it features among the department's gourmet specialities, alongside other vegetable dishes of the terroir: galette aux pommes de terre, Berry green lentils, sucrine du Berry and citrouillat.
Truffiat belongs to a family: that of pâté aux pommes de terre, a speciality of central France prepared mainly in Berry and Orléanais, Marche and Limousin, Bourbonnais and the north-western tip of Auvergne. The recipe changes according to terroir and cook, without changing its name; here it is called "pâté aux patates", there "pâté bourbonnais" or "pâté creusois". Tourte berrichonne, or truffiat, is one of its variations, the "twin brother of pâté bourbonnais".
As to what sets them apart, sources do not agree. One sees it in the persillade—parsley and garlic—and/or the onions; another in the addition of lard, which distinguishes it from the pâté with which it is often confused; a third in the steam vent and the liquid cream poured through its opening. The boundary is all the more blurred given that pâté bourbonnais itself occasionally includes onion and parsley.
Appearance
A pie with a puff pastry base and lid, golden on the outside. When sliced, thin rounds of potato, layered with onion, parsley and cream.
Taste
Potatoes, onion, parsley and crème fraîche; certain recipes add garlic or lard. A hearty, flavourful dish.
Texture
Meltingly soft inside, the filling is made even creamier by the liquid cream poured through the steam vent.
several recipes use puff pastry, but the dish is also made with shortcrust pastry.
the recipe from the Indre directory adds lard to the persillade and grated onions.
a Berry variation, a puff pastry parcel filled with crushed potatoes boiled beforehand, with onion, parsley and cream.
the cousin from Bourbonnais, which occasionally includes onion and parsley.
a similar preparation, with garlic, parsley and, the main difference, meat—minced pork loin.
two rolled-out sheets of puff pastry, one for the base, the other for the lid.
place the second pastry sheet on top, seal the edges and glaze the top with egg.
five minutes before slicing, then serve in portions.
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Truffiat is served in portions, with a green salad. It is eaten hot straight from the oven; it remains good warm or cold the following day. It can start a meal, serve as the main course or accompany meat or fish, and it is an autumn-winter dish, accompanied by a seasonal salad.
For pâté aux pommes de terre in general, Wikipedia suggests a white Reuilly, or for reds a Sancerre or a Saint-Pourçain.
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