Cocoa Nib Chilli Ice Cream

This ice cream I made for a dinner party yesterday. At first it tastes all innocently sweet and chocolatey, but when the ice cream goes down the throat the cool is replaced with a hot, slightly burning, sensation from the chillies. I love the way the hot and cold play off each others.

Cocoa Nib Chilli Ice Cream

3 dl heavy cream
3 dl milk
1 dl sugar
1/3 dl Santa Maria Cocoa Chilli Mix (or if unavailable where you live, see approximation below)
Pinch of salt
Cocoa nibs for decoration

Put everything except the decoration nibs in a pot and bring to boil.

Remove from heat, cover and let steep for 20 minutes.

Put the mixture through a strainer, removing the solids, into a bowl.

Let the mixture cool down in the refrigerator until  througoutly chilled.

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.


Santa Maria Cocoa Chilli Mix approximation

1,5 tablespoons cocoa nibs
0,5 tablespoons ancho chilli flakes
0,5 teaspoon cassia cinnamon (or regular cinnamon with a splash of vanilla extract)

Stir everything together, use in cocoa nib chilli ice cream.

Crazy Asian Beverages - Basil Seed Drink with Apple

Where I come from (Europe that is), beverages tend to be liquid. The exceptions I can think of is orange juice with small pieces of orange membranes in them, or a few chunks of fruit floating around in a punch bowl. In Asia however, things are different.

I'll never forget my first sip of grass jelly drink. A cloyingly sweet, black liquid, faintly tasting of ink, with black pieces of jelly floating around in it. Or pearl tea, I've no idea why it's called tea, the first one I had more resembled artificially fruit flavoured drinking yoghurt with big slimy balls of tapioca, nearly choking me.

But I have this personal trait, stuff I don't understand I tend to get a bit obsessed with. I get this urge trying to find reason where there does not seem to be any. And weird tasting stuff makes me happy. That might be a sight of mental instability, but it does. So I've decided, whenever I see an Asian beverage that I've not yet tasted, I HAVE to try it out.  This decision has given me some of my worst experiences ever drinkwise, but also I few nice ones.

Today I tried out this one, "Basil Seed Drink with Apple".

Look: Colour is amber, heading towards peach. The most striking feature are the basil seeds, closely resembling frog eggs. They are evenly dispersed through the liquid, looking like they've never heard of gravity.

Smell: Strong artificial apple aroma, almost nauseating in it's sweet artificialness.

Taste: Not as bad as one might assume from the smell. Tastes like sweet tea, with an addition of apple aroma. Not as sweet as these kind of drinks often are. Surprisingly enjoyable.

Mouthfeel: The seeds feel like raspberry seeds coated in slime. They kind of slide around in the mouth and whenever I manage to crush one between my teeth there is a satisfying little crunch.

Would you drink this?

Pot Roasts - continued

So, why this obsession with pot roasts. First, everyone in my family likes them. Second, you can eat it for days and have varied meals every time. The first day you eat it like a classical pot roast with gratineed/mashed/baked/whatever potatoes, gravy, pickles and gelée. The next days you make super thin slices and eat them on bread, making steak sandwiches.

My favourites are made with thin slices of meat on Philadelphia cheese and a liberal sprinkling of flaky sea salt on top. My husband likes to eat them with mayo, fresh tomatoes and avocado. And there is the classic, with pickled cucumber and roasted onions. If there is any meat left then (hasn't happened to us yet) I suppose it would work great to chop it up and use it in woks, soups, pasta sauces etc. The sky is the limit.

Well, pot roasts are theoretically easy to make, but not fool proof as you could read about in my last post. Here are some pointers for success:

• Good quality meat! If the meat isn't top notch, it's just not worth trying in the first place.

• An oven thermometer! It's impossible to know how warm the meat is inside just by watching the surface. Here are some temperature guidelines, my ideal is 58°C.

          55°C: rare
          60°C: medium rare
          70°C: medium
          75°C: well done

• Salt! As pot roasts are big chunks of meat, the main flavourings will be stuck on the outside. When sliced up and put on a plate every slice will need some salt, either in the guise of just plain table salt or in a gravy to taste interesting.

Pot Roasts - Working Towards Perfection

Usually in my household my husband goes away to the big grocery store every weekend to do the shopping for the week. My assignment is to do the shopping list, so I usually keep a list in the kitchen that I fill with what we need to get during the week.

Some weeks are busier than other, about a month ago I had hardly managed to jot down anything onto the list. My husband said something like, I'll walk around the store and see what I find. Ok, I said. This strategy doesn't normally work for us, but I didn't have any better ideas myself at the moment. Guess if I was surprised when he showed up with this big lump of beef, saying, I figured it would be really nice to do a pot roast!

Now, we haven't ever done a pot roast before, so I consulted my cookbooks. Julia Childs "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" had a recipe that looked good. It said the meat should be marinated with (among other things) lots of wine, booze and olive oil for about a day. Can't go wrong with that, we thought. But it didn't turn out as good as we'd imagined. The meat just didn't taste very much in itself, dragging the dish down along with it. And we had yet to understand that a digital oven thermometer really is a must, so the meat was sadly overdone.

First attempt of pot roast, served with classic Swedish condiments of pickled cucumbers and gelées

Next week we had a new try, using elk meat this time. We used a recipe that called for marinating the meat with beer, veggies and spices. This time the meat was ok but the marinade turned out very bland. We tried to use it to make gravy but the whole thing just tasted wrong.

As we are very stubborn, or just do not know when to take a hint, the next week we were at it again. This time I had ordered grass-fed speciality beef from Gröna Gårdar, supposed to be especially suitable for making pot roasts.

First we made a type of pot roast that in Swedish is called Rostbiff. It's very easy, you just rub the meat in salt and pepper and braise it in 125°C until a thermometer inserted into the meat shows  60°C (or a bit more or less depending if you like your meat bloody or not). Now we were going places, this one was awesome. We served it as a part of a French themed dinner party along with French potato salad (potatoes and spring onions with a mustard vinaigrette) and baked tomatoes.

Marinating

Then, earlier this week, I made a pot roast that I'm finally very happy with. It's a bastardization of a type of pot roast that is called "Slottsstek" in Swedish and the French type using lots of wine :) Here goes the recipe:

Bastard Pot Roast

1 kg rump steak piece (fransyska in Swedish)
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter

Marinade:
0,5 litre of red wine
1/4 pice of celery root in small pieces
2 onions in small pieces
3 carrots in small pieces
10 white peppercorns
5 allspice berries
3 bay leaves
5 anchovies fillets, mashed
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Gravy:
Used marinade from above
Heavy cream
Butter
Salt and pepper

Make the marinade by mixing all marinade ingredients in a big baking pan.

Rub the meat in salt and pepper and dump it into the marinade.

Let the meat soak in the marinade for about half a day.

Heat the oven to 175°C. 

Brown the meat quickly on all sides in a frying pan.

Put the meat back into the marinade.

Insert an oven thermometer into the meat and put the baking pan with meat and marinade into the oven and let it bake until the thermometer shows 58°C (or more or less depending on your preferences).

Remove the meat and let it set for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, make some gravy by spooning the "used" marinade into a pan (only the liquid, not the veggies). Add some cream, butter, alt and pepper until it tastes really good.

Serve the meat with the gravy.

Mmmmm, meat, with blood, my favourite

Blog remake

To be honest I'm getting a little bored with the cookbook reviewing theme I've been running. I very seldom follow a recipe accurately anyway, I like to do my own thing. So from now on I'm going to focus more on my own creations and maybe I'll throw in a review or two when I feel like it. This way I can freely print any recipes I like and I think that will make the blog a lot more interesting.

Hobgoblin Bread

This might be the best bread I've ever had. Seriously. The only liquid used in the dough is ale, but you wouldn't be able to tell that If you didn't know. The beer taste is subtle, but adds overall depth and a tiny bittersweet edge.

Hobgoblin Bread
One big loaf

760 grams bread baking flour (Vetemjöl Special in Swedish)
60 grams graham flour
2,5 teaspoons instant yeast
500 grams ale, at room temperature (I used Hobgoblin 3, 5%, but probably any flavourful dark beer would do)
2,5 teaspoons salt

Mix all flours and yeast in a food processor. While running on low speed, slowly pour the ale in and wait until the flour is all incorporated into dough.

Let the dough rest for 20 minutes

Sprinkle the salt over the dough and run the food processor again, at medium speed this time, for 7 minutes.

Let the dough rise until doubled in bulk, should take about 2 hours.

Move the dough onto a baking sheet and shape it into a ball.

Let the dough rise until doubled in bulk again, should take about an hour.

Bake the bread at 200°C for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 175°C and bake for 30-40 minutes more until your kitchen smells really good.


Adapted from the "Beer Bread" tin Rose Beranbaums "The bread Bible".

Real Chocolate Wafers

It's a bit of a mystery why these are called "Real Chocolate Wafers" since they're actually made with cocoa. But apart from that they are good, basic chocolate cookies, made with your normal chocolate cookie ingredients, rolled out and cut into different shapes.

I made these for my sons birthday about a month ago. The cut-out letters are the first letters of the names of the kids invited to the party. The cookies are a little bit bitter from the cocoa, but the kids really loved them and gobbled them up in no time at all. The big rounds I've put in the freezer, they're waiting for the right occasion to become ice cream sandwiches.

Roasted Squash Soup with Cocoa Bean Cream

A great thing about "Bittersweet" is that there is an entire chapter of savoury foods using chocolate and cocoa. I love the idea, but I've had some mixed experiences about using chocolate in food before so I thought it would be really interesting to see if the recipes here would work or not.

The first dish I've tried out is "Roasted Squash Soup with Cocoa Bean Cream". This soup is made by roasting a butternut squash in the oven with some olive oil. The squash is then mixed with some stock and sage, drawing on the classic combo of pumpkin and sage. Then the twist is added, by first boiling some cocoa nibs in cream, ladling the cream on top of the soup, and then sprinkling some cocoa nibs on top as well.

This soup was divine. The flavours came together and played off one another just beautifully. The squash contributed sweetness, the sage was dry and, well, herby, the stock was salty and the cocoa nibs added bitterness and crunch. I'm really intrigued by the chocolate and sage combo. I don't think I've ever seen them together before. I've been thinking of using it again in all kinds of preparations. What about "Dark Chocolate and Sage Truffles" or "Milk Chocolate and Sage Pannacotta" or in home made ice cream? There is just an universe out there waiting to be explored!

Bittersweet by Alice Medrich

Time to pick a new book. As I've been talking about nothing but chocolate for a while, the natural choice for a cookbook is "Bittersweet" by Alice Medrich.It's a 370 page book containing nothing but chocolate recipes.

 

Chocolate Festival Loot

My main objective, going to the Chocolate Festival, was tasting lots and lots of chocolate, preferably for free, and maybe buy a few morsels as well to take home. The exhibitors were, of course, all into selling chocolate, luring innocent (or not so innocent) bypasses into spending lots of money on their warez by offering a first little taste for free. A marriage made in heaven!

I had set myself a mental budget of 500 Swedish Kronas (=74 USD). That much I could spend without having to feel bad about my chocolate habits. And I ended up on nearly exactly that. I also had a plan to skip most of the ready made pastries, truffles, boxes of chocolates etc. and instead go for more baking ingredient like stuff that can be harder to come by doing the everyday shopping.

First, the chocolate. Before going I had my mind set on buying a couple of Valhrona bars, but after a big tasting around I found this label, Barry Callenbaut. It was half the price from Valhrona and I thought it tasted at least as good. Also, the pellet format is much handier when baking, so I got these ones instead. There is 200 grams in each bag, and the chocolate is made from beans from Grenada, Madagascar, Ecuador, San Tomé, some palce starting with an F that I cant make out and then there is a bag of common white cooking chocolate as well.

"Plaisir Miel", a chocolate and honey paste. Similar to Nutella but with a more caramel like taste. According to the vendor, great in cakes and pastries.

Italian Licorice powder. Also for use in baking. I have never used it myself but it's supposed to be divine used in ice cream, panna cottas etc. I'm dying to find out.

Chocolate and sea salt covered almonds. This one I've already given away to my mother in law who babysat my 4 year old, giving me the free time to go to the chocolate festival.

Filipino unrefined sugar. I've been meaning to buy one of these for a long time.

I'd never seen one of these before so I bought it out of pure curiosity. The vendor told me they're commonly used in savoury dishes in South America. It contains cocoa and spices such as nutmeg and bay leaf and you're supposed to grate it in order to use. Will be interesting to try out!

Not chocolate at all, but salty licorice with a salmiak, chilli and cranberry flavour. This is, seriously, the best salty licorice I've ever had.