Theobroma Cacao

Today is a day of many things...today I handed in my dissertation proposal, along with many others, and i'm actually very excited about it. Today, I spent over an hour reading about chocolate, which i'm actually addicted to at the moment (reading, not chocolate). I bought the most amazing book last year, the Green & Blacks chocolate cookbook. I think honestly that it's the most amazing investment i've made in cookbook terms, maybe minus my James Martin's Dessert book if i'm being truly honest. Today, is a day of celebration, because I got my first 500 views! *cue balloons, whistles, bells, drums, confetti and such like*. It's pretty sad that I got excited when I saw, I know, but...I don't care! Hehe. I'm actually having a lot of fun writing this, and hopefully some people are having fun reading this.

But really, there is something so satisfying about learning about all this stuff, through all the waves of chocolate that is found everywhere, it's so refreshing to find something that's really gone back to basics, learning about where it comes from and how it's made into the high percentage bars of chocolate that's sold on the shelf. 

For instance, I did not know that Green & Blacks was the first product to be awarded the fairtrade mark in supermarkets in the UK (and it was the Maya Gold flavour, nom). How's that for knowledge! In all fairness, it's on the 'About' page on their website, it's not like I did tonnes of trawling the internet. Also found that you have to melt chocolate at different speeds so as to not ruin the taste and texture, so, dark chocolate takes a little longer to melt than milk or white, but if you let it bubble it turns it gritty and rubbish, so you have to keep it on a double boiler, whereas milk and white just kinda do there own thing and melt within seconds, but, you shouldn't let those bubble either because the milk chocolate turns gritty and bitter and the cocao butter in the white chocolate splits and it goes super acidic.

I've always being quite partial to a bit of dark chocolate, it tastes better, you can use it in everything, savoury and sweet (my chilis just don't taste quite right without it) and it's just incredibly indulgent. I love it. And it always intrigues me how some amazing chocolatiers can manipulate it in such a manner, it's an art, as cheesy as it sounds. I must have spent about 3 hours looking at different specialist chocolatiers in the UK, one of the best being Rococo in London, and how they make all these different truffles and cakes and sweets. I hope that one day I can get to even a quarter of their skill! While we are in the realms of truffles, i'll leave you with a recipe for Green & Black's chocolate truffles.

NB: You can make these with pretty much all the flavours that they do, but if you want smooth truffles, Maya Gold, Mint, Espresso or just plain dark, anything over 85% is pushing it for the bitterness for me, but if it's your taste, go for it!

Green & Black's Truffles

From my trusted Green & Black's cookbook

Servings vary, depending on your desired size of Truffle!

275g dark chocolate, in whatever flavour you've chosen

250ml double cream

50g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Cocoa powder

For starters, put your chocolate (broken into pieces) in a large bowl. Bring the cream to a boil and pour it over your chocolate, when stirring, try not to let it slosh and make too many bubbles, or your truffles will have air bubbles.

Leave to cool for a few minutes and add the butter in 2 stages, after this, it should look glossy and beautiful.

Leave it in the fridge for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight.

Take the ganache out the fridge approximately 15 minutes before you want to make the truffles, it's hard to scoop out the bowl when it's too cold, and it's even more difficult to keep them together when they're melting.

Make sure your hands are cold and dry and dust them with cocoa. Then it's just a case of taking spoonfuls of mixture and rolling it lightly in your hands, keep it rustic though, it's how they were meant to be made! 

Put a few tablespoons of cocoa in a bowl and drop each one in, dusting any excess by kind of playing hot potato with them. Then stick them in the fridge. 

They're lush, and i've made them loads, the Maya Gold ones are especially nice!

There is very little troubleshooting with this recipe, as there aren't many stages or ingredients, but if your truffles look like theyre going to split (it sometimes happens because of the high fat content of the cream), if you have a food processor, give it a few pulses, if not, stir it vigourously for a minute or so and it should be fine!

But onwards with the post, if you ever want to check out the Rococo website (http://rococochocolates.com/), it's not very frilly or particularly exciting (in terms of bells and whistles and video) but it's got some good information, and if you're ever in the area, you can go look at all the yummy expensive chocolate. 

If your budget is a little less then what they're offering, try Hotel Chocolat (http://www.hotelchocolat.co.uk/), it's not exactly 'Bargain Basement' cheap, but if you want to treat yourself to some luxury without re-mortgaging your house, it's a pretty safe bet. I may have accidentily ordered four big boxes last Christmas (oops!), and me and my family (namely my Dad, I know you took all the good ones!) had a nice time picking on some really well made chocolate. It's good for Christmas presents too, it's a little bit different from Thorntons, and there are quite a few shops dotted around. The liquid chocolate that you stir into milk is pretty sexy too.

Well, as this is a celebration of not only reaching 500 views, but of chocolate in all it's glory, I shall leave you with an awesome recipe for crinkle cookies. They are like brownies in the middle and get a glaze on the outside not too dissimilar to Krispy Kreme Donuts, and well...it's hard to resist after that.

Jess' Trusted Crinkle Cookie Recipe

Makes 20 decent sized cookies.

175g good quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces

175g plain flour

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter

1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of good quality vanilla extract

Icing sugar

Put your oven at 160C degree/gas mark 4.

Melt your chocolate and butter over a double boiler (with a bowl over boiling water) gently, and set aside to cool.

In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt.

Beat the eggs and sugar together until pale, and add the chocolate mix and the vanilla extract slowly.

Add the flour mixture and mix thoroughly, cover the bowl then leave in the fridge to chill from anything from 2 hours up to 4 days...2 hours is fine though.

Take the mixture and shape into little balls, toss them generously in icing sugar and lay on a lined baking sheet, use the heel of your hand to flatten them just a little.

To get crisp edges and soft centres 12-15 minutes is fine.

Leave to cool a little, then transfer to a cooling rack.

 

This picture is stolen off the internet, but they do look exactly like that!

They are very nice warm, but I honestly prefer them when they are completely cool, even chilled a bit, as they go chewy and yum!

This is it for now, i'm afraid, go forth and try these, they don't take much effort, time or expense and they really are absolutely delicious.

Peace

JR

A Flying Visit

It has been almost ten days since my last post, please forgive my brief absence.

Alas! No rest for the wicked eh?

I've been super busy with all my writing and working at the bar and such like, so i've not really had time for much of an update! I'm still a little poor at the moment, what with being a student and all, so the adventurous baker in me has been duct-taped, bound and blindfolded like a kinky 60's porn film. Tastefully of course! Hmm...

But! I have still kept my routine going, i'm being organised, i'm keeping my lists, and i'm still cooking some pretty funky stuff. For instance, yesterday I used up left over pastry and cheese from my chicken pie to make sausage, beans and cheese pasties for lunch. Oh, the grease, it was so fun! It was like Greggs, only slightly nicer, and actually had filling. Unlike Greggs, however, they weren't pretty, and the filling I did stuff them with burst my beautifully crafted (ha!) seams of the pastry and it went all over the baking tray, oops! They were still yummy though, and, along with the other half, we polished them off pretty quickly. 

So onwards for my post, cooking successes this week have consisted of, aforementioned chicken pie, a spicy soy chicken nasi goreng-type stir fry with chinese cabbage, broccoli and sesame coriander rice and aztec wraps, which I actually now prefer to enchiladas.

It's going to have to be a bit of a short one today, so i'll press on to my recipe of the week. It's actually a request from a good friend of mine, so enjoy!

Cajun Chicken:

Serves 4

4 chicken breasts 

4 good tablespoons of cajun spice

4 tablespoons of cornflour

salt

pepper

olive oil

This is really simple, cut your chicken breast in half, so it is half the thin-ness of your original chicken breast, leaving it attached at on length. So butterfly it basically!

Coat your chicken generously with cornflour on both sides, shake it a bit to get the excess off (or it'll leave a not so awesome layer of spongey flour around the outside when it's cooked). Mix the cajun, a little salt and pepper together in a bowl, get each butterflied, cornfloured chicken breast and massage some of the spice into it, you don't need to be delicate, and make sure it's well coated.

Meanwhile, turn your griddle/frying on to a medium-high heat and put a good glug of olive oil in. If you're making for four, it's better to do two-in-a-pan at once, for one, it's quicker, and two, most people have pans big enough to hold 4 butterflied chicken breasts comfortably. 

So the chicken is coated in spice, now wait until your oil moves quickly around the pan and sizzles gloriously if you drop a dry bit of bread into it. and lay your chicken down on one side. Leave it to cook for about 2-3 minutes, depending on how thick your chicken is of course. keep an eye on it, because it's so thin it won't take long to cook. 

Spoon a little more cajun spice onto the top of the chicken and flip it when it's cooked half way over, it honestly doesn't matter if it doesnt stick entirely! This is the kind-of fun part, when the one side is sizzling away nicely, get a tablespoon, tip your pan and spoon the juices and loose spice over the top of the, what should be, slightly paler side of the chicken. If there are any bits of spice left sprinkle it on top of the paler side and spread it a little with the back of the spoon, it should stick to it quite easily now it's been in oil. 

Once it's been cooking for another 2-3 minutes, turn it over so the spice can infuse into the other side, cook for a further minute or so, stick it on a little kitchen roll to absorb any left over oil and voila. You are done!

This is just the basics of the meal, you can pair this with so much, sweet potato wedges go lovely with these, so does brown rice, spiced bulgar wheat is also a lovely combo. But it's entirely up to you, if you're feeling a little unadventurous after your endeavour you could just stick it with oven chips. Not that i'm dissing a good plate of chunky oven chips in the slightest of course!

I'm sorry it's been a flash-in-the-pan visit (is that too cheesy?....yes, I think it is) but I shall update something a little more exciting very soon!

Peace

JR

Autumnal Musings

I love Halloween, not for begging for sweets at stranger's houses (bit strange!), but for all the veg the comes into season. And for the excitement of being able to eat stews and soups without feeling guilty that it's 30°C outside, not that it ever gets that hot in England.

I've always been a bit of an Autumnal sort of person, and I don't think I really realised why until I started cooking properly for myself. Being a sucker for a bit of romance and all, there is of course the natural beauty of everything, but only adding to this is the wonderment of root vegetables that are available. I, for instance, decided that, for the first time, I would carve a pumpkin. Shock horror! It actually went alright, and although it looked more like a gurning old man (which, I suppose, is a little scary) the innards were far more rewarding. 

Using some bits and bobs I had in the cupboard, I ended up making a HUGE batch of pumpkin soup, which surprisingly came out quite well to say I wasn't working to a recipe. Working on the basics of my food knowledge (with a little help from my big sis'), I figured out some complimentary flavours to try and make it more than just pureed pumpkin. Frying a good bit of leftover onion, some ginger, some garlic and a few pinches of spices and seasoning, it needed little more. And to say I was going to throw away all the waste! It had a lovely kick from the curry spice, some mellow from the cinnamon and a fresh aftertaste from the ginger, oh, and it tasted like pumpkin of course. All topped off with a handful of toasted chilli pumpkin seeds gave it a bit of fire crisp aswell. 

Honestly? I was really chuffed!

I even had left over pumpkin to make some pumpkin pie, but I left it too long (and later realised I didn't quite have enough), so I concocted a banana and chocolate ganache cream pie instead.

Another reason for loving Autumn...it gets cold, so I can actually get away with using the excuse "It's too cold to leave the house". Loving it! And loving the fact that I can trawl the Internet looking for new and weird things to cook. I've actually come across a pretty cool looking cake called (aptly), "The King of Cakes", or Baumkuchen to the more European amongst us. I vaguely remember eating this at a fair in Germany when I was younger, mainly because it reminded me of a Kit-Kat when I bit into it. It's traditionally made on a spit and the cook paints the batter on in layers. If you take a cross-section of it, it really looks like the rings of a tree, which is pretty cool. 

It takes forever to make, so if you have no patience, it's probably not the best project to undertake, although you can do it in a regular oven, your tree rings'll just be horizontal rather than vertical, which i'm sure you'll be forgiven for! And if you can't be bothered, it'd probably be quicker to wait for the tree to grow and eat that instead, although I doubt it'll taste as good. I don't know who to thank for this strange creation, François Fournier? The good people of Salzwedel? Hungarian brides? Or good ol' fashioned Blighty in all it's Medieval greatness? Either way i'm glad they all exist to keep people like me entertained on a Sunday evening.

So. Tasks for the year now span to:

1) Make perfect, pretty Macaroons.

2) Make a makeshift Baumkuchen.

I know this post is a bit of a beast, but I have a lot of time on my hands seeing as it's 'Reading Week'. So i'll save your eyes and skip to the 'Recipe of the Week', dun dun dunnn! (Oh, the cheese):

Jess' Pumpkin Soup.

Feeds- 'the 5000'

The innards of 2 pumpkins  (seeds removed, washed and dried and put aside)

 2 Medium onions (white)

Fairly big knob of unsalted butter (Lurpak'll do).

3 Garlic cloves

2" Root of Fresh Ginger

2 Cinnamon sticks

1 Pint Chicken stock

Pinch of Curry Powder

Tablespoon of Chilli flakes

Good bit of sea salt and ground black pepper

Dollop of cream

Everything about this soup is easy, it takes a bit of  time to cook but it's really simple and you can leave it mostly alone. 

Firstly you need to chop the onions (pretty finely), the garlic and the fresh ginger. Fry the onions in the melted butter on a medium heat, then turn it right down so they cook slowly for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, they should barely sizzle if it's on the right heat, really don't want it to burn or it'll taste horrid! Cook for a further 5 minutes and add the pumpkin, sizzle for a little while, then add the chicken stock, cinnamon sticks, curry powder and seasoning. 

Leave it for about 20-30 minutes to cook on low, so it's almost turning to mush, remove the cinnamon sticks and blend with a hand blender. Stir in a bit of cream if you want to make it a little richer, and leave cooking on a low heat whilst you prepare the pumpkin seeds.

Take a dry pan and add the chilli flakes and as many pumpkin seeds as you like, if you're a little timid with heat, add less chilli, if you like your food hotter than the sun, add more. Easy! Toast for a little while until slightly coloured and coated with chilli, and serve on top of the soup as a garnish!

I thought I would alternate between the sweet and the savoury with my recipes (just to be fair of course, I wouldn't want to hurt the other's feelings!)

It's been quite a successful beginning to Autumn, I can't wait until Christmas! There is going to be a feast and a half if i've got anything to do with it!

Peace

JR