Prime rib sandwich with truffle butter à la Barefoot Contessa

When I first saw the recipe for truffled filet of beef sandwich in the Barefoot Contessa’s Back to Basics cookbook, I instantly knew it was something that we would both love. In fact, we’ve been fascinated with truffles since we hand-carried one back with us from our last visit to France.

I knew my biggest challenge would be to find truffle butter. In my tiny town in the mountains of North Carolina, truffle butter isn’t exactly a staple in my market. In fact, I would bet you anything that no one in my market has even heard of a truffle, much less knows what one is.

Black truffle butter from The Fresh Market

I pretty much forgot about the truffle butter until this Christmas. We were planning on being in Florida and my brother-in-law was going to serve a seven rib prime beef for Christmas Eve dinner.  As we were walking through Fresh Market there, my husband Meakin said, “Let’s see if they carry truffle butter, because if they do (he paused and a big grin came on his face), we can bring some slices of really rare prime rib home from Christmas dinner and use it in place of the filet of beef to make Ina’s truffled beef sandwich.”

Meakin carving prime rib for our niece who likes hers well done

We like our prime rib rare

And that’s just what we did. Ina describes this sandwich as “not your average roast beef sandwich; it’s filet of beef with black truffle butter, Parmesan cheese, and bitter arugula. Your friends will swoon.” Well, we substituted rare roasted prime rib and Ina’s right – we definitely swooned.

Prime rib sandwich with truffle butter à la Barefoot Contessa
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa’s Back to Basics

Left over slices of rare roast beef from a prime rib
1 slender French baguette
Black truffle butter, at room temperature
Fleur de sel French sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Fresh Parmesan cheese
Fresh baby arugula

Bring left-over roast beef slices to room temperature. Cut the baguette lengthwise, but not all the way through. Spread the bottom half of the bread generously with the black truffle butter. Top with a layer of sliced beef and sprinkle it with the fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper. Using a vegetable peeler, shave the Parmesan cheese into thin shards and scatter the shards over the sliced beef on each sandwich. Sprinkle with arugula leaves, fold the tops of the sandwich over, and cut into diagonals.

Printable recipe

Cook’s notes:
If you would like to make your own truffle butter, check out Natasha’s recipe on 5 Star Foodie Adventures. To see Ina’s original sandwich using filet of beef, click over to Bridgett’s post on La Bella Cooks. I promise you’ll swoon.

In the sidebar of Ina’s recipe she says she buys truffle butter from Dartagnan in three ounce packages and it’s surprisingly inexpensive. We were able to find it at a local Fresh Market. Truffle butter keeps very well in your freezer and both white and black truffle butter are available.