Chocolate Winter warmer

I did promise to feed you with more chocolate. I think the weather requires it. It is so cold here and my feet are suffering - I do sound like an old granny when I say that I suffer from chilblains..many people don't even know what they are!

Probably I should increase my diet of chilly and spicy food. I should start planning a cycle of Asian dinners to R's joy. I will keep you posted on this.

In the mean time I am drinking litres and litres of hot tea (that ground floor loo has turned out to be useful after all! My mother-in-law was right....). So to go with my tea, I have clearly finished the Dutch bread, I have made a new cake combining my favourite Winter ingredients: chocolate, orange, cinnamon and pine nuts. Et voila! A chocolate with orange, cinnamon and pine nuts cake!

Winter Cake

200g dark chocolate

2 eggs

1 egg yolk (this means you use three eggs!)

100g sugar

100g flour

100g butter

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cointreau (or whisky or Grand Marnier)

2 tsp cinnamon (or mixed spices)

zest of 1 orange

1 tbsp orange juice

3-4 tbsp pine nuts

1. Mix the flour with the baking powder and the cinnamon.

2. Melt baigne marie (in a glass bowl over a pan with steaming water) the chocolate chopped in pieces to speed up the process together with the butter. Mix well and set aside to cool down.

3. Whisk the eggs with the sugar and grate the orange zest in it. Add the liquor and mix well. Add the pine nuts and mix well. Add everything to the chocolate mix. Mix well to ensure everything is well incorporated.

4. Sift in the wet mixture the flour and mix well to make sure the flour is absorbed.

5. Pour the mix in a shallow or plump cake tin previously buttered and floured to avoid the cake sticks to the bottom or the sides of the tin.

6. Cook the cake in the oven at C180 for 30 minutes.

7. When it is cooked, leave it on a rack to cool down and then sprinkle either cacao or icing sugar (I would have preferred the icing sugar but I realised I had finished it when I did the carrot cake and couldn't be bothered to walk out in the cold...I think it looks pretty even in dark!).

P.S. Now that I have taken a photo of it, I can go and eat it!

More chocolate

I did warn you that more recipes involving chocolate would have followed. I hope I will make some of my followers happy!

Last weekend I was in Siena at my parents' and every time I'm there I feel that I need to cook something for them. It might be as a way of thanking my mother and be in charge of the kitchen for a tiny bit after she slaves behind the cookers for days; or it might be to finish up some of the ingredients that lay around the cupboards for months (if not even years!) until complete putrification....my father and I have often suspected that my mother was running for the Nobel prize in medicine of moulds.

So before the Easter egg chocolate started acquiring that suspicious grey colour I decided to go through a wonderful book on chocolate that my mother has on her "cooking library" which must contain more than 150,000 recipes! And made dark chocolate tartlets. On Sunday the weather looked rather dodgy and inspired a real oven session instead.

The day before though the sun was shining and the temperature scarily warm. So I suggested to go and inspect the castle where my sister is planning to organise her wedding. I thought that was my duty of older sister....the photos below were sneakily taken in the garden.

In the garden there was an amazing tree that the owner claimed her son normally climb until the very top - that is something that needs to be tested...maybe not during the wedding though!

But back to our chocolate treat. The recipe is quite simple. What you need to make sure you do is to leave the base dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or it will be all floppy and difficult to arrange on the moulds.

Dark Chocolate Tartlets

Makes 6 medium tartlets

200g flour

100g cocoa powder

3 eggs

200g butter

100g caster sugar

200g dark chocolate

20dl cream

10 dl milk

1 egg

1. Make the base first. Mix the butter with the egg and whisk well. Mix the cocoa to the flour and sift them to the wet mixture.

2. Work quickly the paste and form a ball. Cover it with foil and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (up to 2 hours).

3. Prepare the cream. Melt the chocolate at baigne-marie and then add the cream/milk and the beaten egg. Whisk well to ensure everything gets incorporated.

4. After the cooling time in the fridge, remove the base and use it to cover the bottom and sides of 6 tartlet moulds which you will have greased and floured before to avoid the pasty sticks to the bottom.

5. Cover the pasty with silver foil and fill them with dry beans so that the pasty won't raise while it is cooking. Don't pour the beans without the foil as I did once!

6. Cook them in the oven for 8 minutes. Once they are cooked, remove the beans and foils and set aside to cool down for a couple of minutes.

7. Fill the bases with the chocolate cream (if it has formed a foil on the surface, just whisk the cream again) almost up to the top leaving half a cm.

8. Cook the tartlets in the oven at C180 for 10 minutes.

9. Remove them from the oven and leave them to cool on a rack for at least 1 hour. Sprinkle before serving them with icing sugar.

Wild Boar in spicy chocolate sauce

I'm sure that many of you will think I've gone nuts. Wild Boar and chocolate...?!? I know, it does sound a bit odd. However, true chocolate lovers (and conoisseurs) will understand me when I say that the combination genuinely works and will realise that it's a fantastic match. And it's a dish to impress your guests!

Not sure whether this is my chocolate period (il tempo della cioccolata) considering that I have never thought of myself as a chocolate gourmand. Not like my friend A. who could buy a bag of Brazil nuts coated in chocolate and devoured them in less than 5 minutes...not sure how she does!

I must recognise though that chocolate, if dark though (and not that one with nuts, raisins, milk as Brits are used to), has unexpected wonders. A. will be interested in this part...

lowers blood pressure

lowers LDL cholesterol

stimulates endorphins giving a feeling of pleasure

anti depressant as it contains serotonin

stimulates attention being rich in theobromine

I doubt you can still resist to chocolate now...more recipes will follow! For the moment I give you this one that comes from the Medici Family in Renaissance Florence. So I thought of adding a few snaps I took in Florence (where I was hunting for a leather jacket).

If you go to Florence I would make sure of not missing to have aperitif at Finisterrae in via dei Pepi, dinner at Zaza' in via della Stufa (on the other side of the Arno), and a snack with panino & lardo di colonnata (an indescribable cold meat made of pork fat cured with salt, pepper and herbs out of this world) at I Fratellini in via dei Cimatori just off via del Corso. And of course tea and chocolate (to take away) at Cafe' Rivoire in piazza della Signoria!

Below is the recipe. Please don't be freaked out by the long list of ingredients, they are all easily available and reasonably cheap!

For 4 people

1kg wild boar (or venison or beef) cut into 5cm cubes

90g dark chocolate

0.6dl olive oil

1 medium onion

1 big carrot

1 celery stalk

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp chopped parsley

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1,8 dl red wine

6dl white wine vinegar

2.5 dl meat stock

0.6dl grappa (or schnapp)

4 tbsp walnuts

2 tbsp raisins

3 tbsp pine nuts

3 tbsp candied lemon rind

2 tbsp sugar

salt and black pepper

1. Heat the oil in a shallow but large pan. Chop the onion, carrot, celery, onion and parsley to the oil and cook for 10 minutes tossing often until they are soft and lightly pan fried.

2. Add the meat and cook it quickly for a few minutes. Add the salt, the spices and bay leaves. Pour the wine and cook for 5 minutes. The wine will evaporate. Add the vinegar and let it evaporate too.

3. Add the stock and cover to let it simmer for 45 minutes or until the meat is tender. Add more stock if you think that the sauce is too thick or is sticking to the bottom of the pan.

4. Melt at baigne-marie the chocolate. Add to it the grappa, walnuts, raisins, pine nuts and candied lemon rinds, and the sugar. Mix well and remove from the heat.

5. Remove the meat from the pan and place it in a plate. Remove the excessive fat from the pan.

6. Add to the chocolate a few tbsp of the cooking broth and add it to the meat which you will have placed back again in the pan.

7. Simmer everything again for a further 3minutes.

You can serve it with roasted potatoes (without any herbs) or just a plain mixed salad. My mother would probably serve it with polenta as she loves it and comforts her in winter....I frankly cannot stand it so I won't...

Chocolate and Rabbits for Halloween

I forgot to tell you that I am part of a cooking group (http://muchpru.homelinux.org/cooking/?page_id=9). There are 5 of us from different nationalities (English, French, Italian and Japanese) and the idea is to meet from time to time and teach one or two recipes from our country. As my cousin Giulia was visiting for the weekend, and Halloween was around the corner, I thought of bringing a slice of Tuscany to Cambridge to celebrate Autumn and All Saints.

Tuscan food is quite simple and earthy. Nothing too fancy. Just genuine, frank flavours with some Medieval touches. Most of it was developed at the court of Caterina dei Medici who brought with her some of her favourites. I am sure nobody knows that the original recipes for crepes and canard a' l'orange were in reality introduced to France from Florence, and I am not making it up! It is based on historical records - but I am sure that no French person would believe this story. Tant pis!

So rabbit with black olives, rosemary and garlic is a very traditional dish from Siena. But please don't even start looking at this recipe if you are squeamish even in the slightest! I have warned you...so don't blame me for shaky legs or sudden sickness!

The meat was locally supplied from the Mill Road butcher - probably one of the best in Cambridge (this is once more in support of our Romsey Town Heaven!).

I would recommend that you ask the butcher to chop the rabbit and clean it as much as possible before you start cooking it. Also make sure you leave it in a bowl with running tap water for at least an hour (I know this sounds like an awful waste of resources but believe me if you don't you will feel like gone back to nature, a bit too much in fact!). I would also suggest that you are away from the kitchen and cannot hear the noise as it does turn into a real Chinese torture after only 15 minutes....

I might not have sold this rabbit very well. True. But it can taste divine - Alison can confirm (she had three servings!).

Rabbit with olives, rosemary, and garlic ("Coniglio alla Toscana")

a medium rabbit (approx 1kg);

150g black dried olives;

2 long sprigs of fresh rosemary;

3-4 garlic cloves;

half a glass of red wine;

4-5 tbsp olive oil;

600g potatoes

1. Pat dry the rabbits pieces (warning! this caused dizziness and sickness in one of our cooking members...who didn't faint though...phew!) with kitchen paper (rather than a towel as the smell that leaves is hard to remove despite two washings!).

2. In a large medium deep frying pan (a casserole would also do), heat the oil with the garlic and rosemary until the garlic is slightly brown.

3. Add the rabbit pieces cooking quickly on each side. Add the wine and let it evaporate.

4. Reduce the heat and add the olives. Cover and simmer for at least 25 minutes. The bottom of the pan will have a sticky layer of fat and olives which you can just scratch gently and add to the rest of the dish.

5. Separately cook the potatoes chopped in a 2-3 cm pieces in abundant salted water. Once they are half way cooking, drain them and add them to the rabbit. Stir well to ensure the rabbit oil covers the potatoes.

6. Serve hot with some mixed salad on the side.

The photo below was taken before the potatoes (and before the camera died).

I know that you are expecting the chocolate recipe too. I hope you have managed to read till now - and haven't been put off by the cute rabbit....

This chocolate cake is heaven. Not only because does it taste fantastic but also because it doesn't have many calories. So double good!

Dolce al cioccolato fondente (Fondant chocolate cake)

3oog dark chocolate (Sainsbury's basic will do perfectly well);

4 eggs;

4 tbsp sugar;

300g butter;

2 tbsp flour;

1 espresso cup

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180C. Melt the chocolate in a bowl on a boiling pan. Add the butter and incorporate well. Add the espresso and mix well. Let it cool.

2. Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks with the sugar and add them to the chocolate mix. Beat the egg whites until firm.

3. Add the flour using a sift to the chocolate mix. Mix well to ensure there are no lumps. If there are use a whisker and they will disappear.

4. Fold the beaten egg whites to the chocolate mix (with a clock-wise movement from down to up) with a metal spoon to avoid the air created in the whites doesn't disappear.

5. Grease and flour well a 20cm baking tray. Pour the mixture into the tray and cook in the oven for 30 minutes at C180.

The photo was taken only a couple of minutes after the cake was brought to the table. So you have an idea of how good it was!!