Archive for August 12th, 2007

I caught a piece on Food Network this morning from Nigella Feasts. She was making hot cocoa. There are so many ways to make this. And I’m always willing to try a new twist; even in the summer.

Her recipe used several ingredients, none of which, I have combined quite like hers.

• Honey
• Light brown sugar
• Cinnamon Stick
• Whole milk
• 1/2 Valrhona bar
• Vanilla Extract
• Splash of Rum

She wisked it all up, removed the cinnamon, and that was that. I will try something like this (and even, combined, when cooled, with ice in the blender, might be good), but I’d have a few suggestions if you enjoy this treat often.

First, combine the light brown sugar, with 3 cinnamon sticks, and 1-2 spent vanilla beans, in a plastic container. Shake/mix the container once a week. I’d do this to flavor my sugar, so I don’t have to add sticks/vanilla each time.

Second, I’ve used whole milk, but half-and-half is even richer. You decide.

Third, some call for layers of chocolate flavor. I typically try some powered cocoa with the chocolate bar.

Fourth, some prefer a more “mocha” flavor. This is cocoa with the addition of coffee. To get this, you have a variety of sources, from powered espresso, to regular coffee, to Kahlúa. You could change Nigella’s recipe with a nip of the coffee liqueur instead of rum; or even, make cinnamon coffee and add some of that.

I long to taste the thick, rich hot cocoa they served in the chocolate shop in the hit-movie, Chocolat. That’s why I’ve tried the thicker, richer half-and-half.

I hope this post encourages you to experiment with your own Ultimate Hot-Chocolate recipes.

I was going to call this a “disaster,” but I’ve had too many of those, and this wasn’t a disaster. It was edible. It was simply, a mistake.

I’ve been a big fan of using natural flavors of somewhat exotic things in dishes. Ever taste a cauliflower purée? It’s delicious as a bed to a piece of crispy-coated fish. Yesterday, I sautéed some tilapia in bacon fat coated in panko crumbs. I thought sitting it on top of a thick puréed vegetable would be tasty.

I took an entire head of broccoli and par-boiled it, then added some water and cream with the broccoli in the blender. I had the start of a great soup (I would find out), but not a purée. With the water, it was too… thin. Perhaps with a small potato and less water it would have had success. But with the addition of garlic, parmesan, and fresh parsley, it was nevertheless tasty.

I instead en-robed my asparagus with this “sauce” and while it tasted good, it was very odd looking. I think in the future these ingredients (alongside the bacon) would make for a good soup.

Imagine… Crème of Broccoli Soup, so fresh, with the parsley, maybe a hint of lemon juice, then on top, we float a few pieces of asparagus tips fried-up in bacon fat? Or maybe even a little crab meat too? This would make for a fun starter.

The fish, then, sat by itself on the plate. For my exciting sauce, I took a bottle of black currant juice and reduced it over medium-high heat into a syrup, and mounted it with butter. At that point I also took out the garlic clove that had been around for the reduction ride.

The only problem, I still had “too much” sauce for 2 pieces of fish. For four or five, it would have been a nice accent on the plate (and the taste was what I had hoped for, sweet, but tart). But alone with that fish, it was overwhelmingly strong.

The final accent on the plate was a dice of Hanover tomato. Again, it was excellent with the fish, but there was too much of that currant sauce. I also crumbled the bacon on top of the fish. The combination of the bacon and tomato made one recall a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich (BLT).

So, to recap:

• Tilapia encrusted in Panko with Black Currant Sauce, bacon flavor
• Purée of Broccoli
• Asparagus

Hold-back on the strong sauce; it should be used as an accent. The bacon-tomato thing was interesting and I’d do it again. For the purée, either augment it with something starchy (potato), or make it a soup instead. IN this case, some cubed potatoes, fried up with garlic, perhaps in the same pan with the asparagus, with some balsamic vinegar and herbs, would have been a better idea.

Any edible mistakes you’ve made? Share in the comments.