Recently I have been enjoying my own variation of old fashioned cocoa. I have found that coffee aggravates my tendonitis, but cocoa is OK. The original way of making it with tons of sugar does not appeal, so Ive invented Cocoa for grownups if you like strong dark chocolate it may appeal to you. First you need cocoa powder NOT drinking chocolate that is mainly sugar, the real deal is fat reduced and contains only cocoa solids with much of the cocoa butter removed. I make it very strong in a cafetiere machine with a plunger, mine is in stainless and insulated. I pre-heat it as coffee likes to be brewed at slightly below boiling point, but I guess chocolate does not. I put in a really heaped dessert spoon of cocoa powder (I buy Pantagruel a famous old Portuguese culinary brand, the same companys bar chocolate, both dessert and culinary, is excellent.) Cocoa, even the good stuff, is half the price of first rate coffee, so I feel free to pile it in, add boiling water and stir very well to get it really well mixed, if you have trouble at this stage, start with just a bit of water, make a paste and then dilute. I heat some half fat milk to 40ºC, about the same amount I would put in really milky tea, 3/4 in a cup say. Having let the chocolate brew and settle a bit, I pour it and add the milk, then add a really tiny bit of honey, just the tip of the spoon, and mix it. Enjoy. It will be a little grainy, but very intense and chocolaty. The tiny hint of honey just takes the harshest of the bite off the bitterness. If, like me, you drink no other caffeinated drinks, be ready for the mind expanding buzz, this is close to the original chocolate experience that European visitors encountered in Mexico and then adapted to their taste, then it just became a vehicle for a sugar binge, the useful and sacramental alkaloid was forgotten.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 08:50:46 +0000
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