Cinco de Mayo Chocolate Menu: Entrees

Cinco de Mayo (The Fifth of May) is a Mexican holiday celebrating the victory of the Mexican army over the French at the Battle of Puebla, May 5, 1862. Puebla's signature dish is Mole Poblano--a Chocolate spicy stew.

Chocolate and chiles are a part of many Mexican dishes, so I’ve put together my own chocolate ‘menu’ for Cinco de Mayo. Some things you can buy, some you can make. Whatever you decide, you’ll get your fill of chocolate on Cinco de Mayo.

Today: Snacks and entrée and drinks. Tomorrow: Desserts, Hot Chocolate and Chocolate Bars

Chocolate Tortilla Chips: To purchase.
Food Should Taste Good makes a great Chocolate Tortilla Chip—good balance of the salt and sweet. They’re available in many markets and online. Another choice for Chocolate Tortilla Chips are the Vosges Red Fire Chocolate-Covered Tortilla Chips. They’re sweeter, but delicious. They are nicely salted chips drenched in milk chocolate and dusted with ancho and chipotle chilies.

Chicken Mole, my favorite Mexican chocolate main dish, can be very complicated to make. I always order it when it’s on the menu, and I was thrilled to find that Paula Deen has a quick Chicken Mole recipe. o.k. it's not all that quick, but faster than the traditional recipes.

Paula Deen’s Quick Chicken Mole

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 chipotle peppers, roughly chopped
1 (10-ounce) can chicken broth
2 tablespoons peanut butter
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 (5-pound) chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds), for garnish
White rice, for serving

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Heat oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add onion and saute until translucent. Add garlic and spices and continue to saute to toast and develop flavor. Add diced tomatoes, peppers, chipotles, broth, peanut butter, and chocolate. Simmer for 10 minutes. Strain and puree until smooth.

Sear the chicken in a heavy bottomed hot saute pan over medium-high heat until browned on both sides. Add to casserole dish, cover with sauce and braise the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Garnish with pepitas and serve with white rice.

You can also use this mole dish in Enchiladas!

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Here’s another “Main Dish”—I know it’s really a dessert, but they’re tamales, after all, so I’m counting them as a main dish.

This recipe for Chocolate Tamales for Cinco de Mayo is from Diana's Recipe Book. The tamales are easy to make and delicious.

1 cup milk
1 pound melted chocolate
1 pound butter
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 pounds corn flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
24 corn husks
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).

Boil the milk and add the chocolate. Stir constantly until chocolate is completely melted. Add the butter and the sugar. Mix until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Mix the corn flour and baking powder together in a bowl. Slowly add the chocolate mixture and mix by hand for 10 minutes. Grease 2 (12 cup) muffin pans and line with corn husks. Fill with chocolate tamale mixture and bake for 20 minutes.

Makes 24 Chocolate Tamales.

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And what is more traditional to drink than Tequila? This would be my drink of choice, and Tanteo has a 100% Weber blue agave blanco tequila infused with cocoa beans and jalapeno. Not too sweet and has a kick!

Tomorrow: Dessert--Mexican Chipotle Brownies, Spicy Hot Drinking Chocolate and great peppery Chocolate Bars.

Raspberry Chocolate Tart

O.K., yet another esoteric holiday: Raspberry Tart Day. Saw this holiday on Twitter from Foodimentary, a daily food fact dispenser. Of course, what's a raspberry tart without chocolate? There are many recipes for chocolate raspberry tarts, but I found a great Double Chocolate Raspberry Tart on Cherrapeno. This tart is a two tone chocolate tart using Green & Black's organic bars and Dorie Greenspan's pastry. Of course, you can always vary the pastry and chocolate to your taste. Tart is also full of fresh raspberries rather than jam.

Ingredients:
8 oz white chocolate
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

8 oz dark chocolate
1/3 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tart pan -about: 4 ½" x 14"
1 small container fresh raspberries
Extra chocolate for drizzling

In a double boiler, melt the white chocolate with cream and butter. When melted, stir gently and pour into the pastry case. Working quickly, push the raspberries into this chocolate layer and leave to cool while you get on with the dark chocolate layer.

Melt the dark chocolate, cream and butter as above and pour over the raspberries.

Melt the extra white and dark chocolate, drizzle over the tart and place in the fridge to set. About half an hour before serving, you want to take the tart out and let it come to room temperature.

Sweet Tart Dough
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

8 oz plain flour
2 oz icing sugar
4 oz butter, cut into cubes
pinch salt
1 large egg yolk

Using a food processor, blend the flour, icing sugar and pinch of salt with the cubes of butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and pulse gently until the pastry comes together. If the pastry is not binding properly, your egg yolk may not have been big enough, so add a little water or milk, a teaspoon at a time until it does come together.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll it out to fit your tart tin. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes before baking.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Butter the shiny side of a piece of foil and put it buttered side down on the pastry, bake for about 15 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10 minutes until nicely browned.

Note: Dorie recommends pressing the dough evenly into the tin - Nicisme at Cherrapeno writes that she prefers rolling the pastry out with a rolling pin, as she gets a more even sheet. I agree.

Photo and recipe used with permission of Cherrapeno.

National Truffle Day

Today is indeed National Chocolate Truffle Day. As I've mentioned, I'm not much of a candy maker, but the Chocolate Bourbon Balls I suggested to make and have today for the Kentucky Derby are truffles by definition.

At the San Francisco Chocolate Salon there were so many truffles that I was on overload. So basically what is a truffle? The French consider truffles to be a ball of ganache rolled in cocoa. (So the Bourbon Balls count). Truffles were named after the truffle fungus because of the physical resemblance--but nothing--nothing like it in taste. In 1912, the Belgian chocolatier Jean Neuhaus invented the first hard chocolate shell that enabled fillings of any kind and consistency from creme to liqueur. Before that there were only solid centers like caramels and nuts covered with chocolate, because the centers wouldn't leak out.

Confusion reigns: Jean Neuhaus called his new filled chocolates pralines (same word used to describe candy almonds that were already made by the French since 1636) The French call filled chocolates chocolats fourres. They call chocolates in general bonbons de chocolat or chocolats assortis.

Some chocolatiers subsequently covered their ganache centers with by-hand dipping or in hard chocolate shells. In France or America, these "enrobed" ganaches were called truffles. When chocolatiers immigrated to the U.S., they sold pralines, truffles, bonbons or assorted chocolates, depending on their nationality. Same product, different names.
Ganache: smooth blend of chocolate and cream (sometimes butter), rolled in cocoa powder and sugar to make a truffle, often used as center for filled chocolates.
Thanks to The Nibble for the history of the Chocolate Truffles.

Since I'm not a candymaker, I'm lucky to live in the San Francisco Bay area where truffles abound. Some of my favorites are Joseph Schmidt, XOX Truffles, Recchiuti, NeoCocoa and Dolce Bella Chocolates. If you're vegan and think you can't enjoy a good truffle, think again. Here's a review of Uli Mana truffles on The Nibble.

Want to watch a truffle making demo? Here's a video of local chocolatier Michael Recchiuti making truffles in an elevator. The kitchen was crowded.

Here's an easy truffle recipe, slightly adapted in terms of darker chocolate. Nuts and coconut can be optional, in my opinion.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup whipping cream
• 12 ounces (about 2 cups) fine semisweet chocolate (70-85% cacao)
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract; or divide the batch and make half with 1 teaspoon vanilla, half with 1 teaspoon of your favorite liqueur
• 1/4 cup top quality unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup (about 2.5 ounces) sweetened, shredded coconut (optional)
  
• 1/2 cup (about 2 ounces) finely chopped unsalted hazelnuts or pistachios (optional)
• 
  
• Directions

1. Bring the cream to a boil in a heavy medium saucepan and remove from heat. Add the chocolate; whisk until melted and smooth.
2. Whisk in the vanilla. Pour the mixture into a medium bowl. Cover and chill until firm, about 3 hours.
3. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper. Drop the mixture by rounded teaspoonfuls onto the waxed paper. Freeze until firm, about 45 minutes.
4. Place the cocoa powder, coconut and chopped nuts into individual bowls. Hand-roll the truffles into balls. Roll 1/3 of the truffles in cocoa, 1/3 in coconut and 1/3 in nuts.
5. Cover with plastic; keep chilled until ready to serve. The truffles can be made up to two weeks ahead: if storing for more than a day, keep in an airtight container so the truffles don’t absorb other flavors from the refrigerator.

*Recipe from THE NIBBLE files. Technique is similar to the Bourbon Ball recipe, so just about anyone can do this. Thanks.

Have a great Truffle Day!

Chocolate Candy: The Horse to Win at the Kentucky Derby

I just can't get over the facts about Chocolate Candy, the horse I think just might win the Kentucky Derby. My blog today is not about chocolate, that sweet food. If you'd like to make chocolate candy for the Kentucky Derby tomorrow, make some Chocolate Bourbon Balls in Chocolate Candy's honor.

Reasons Chocolate Candy will win:

1. Who doesn't love chocolate candy?
2. He's owned by weight-loss magnate Jenny Craig (and we know she loves chocolate)
3. He's trained in my home town and swept both of Golden Gate's major Kentucky Derby prep races

And five horse sense reasons given by Bill Reed reported Special to the San Francisco Chronicle.

1. Instead of sticking with Russell Baze, who rode him in both his Golden Gate Fields victories, Hollendorfer has opted for Derby veteran Smith, who won the roses with the longshot Giacomo in 2005 and has finished second three times in his 15 Derby rides since 1984. In two Derby rides, Baze finished 13th and 14th.

2. His pedigree indicates he'll like the Derby's mile and a quarter, which is an eighth of a mile farther than any of the contenders has won. His sire, Candy Ride, won the Pacific Classic and his dam, Crownette, is a daughter of 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew.

3. His race in the Santa Anita Derby was huge. Former jockey great Gary Stevens, who did the TV commentary for NBC, said he would have upset Pioneerof The Nile if the pace hadn't been so slow.

4. There's a slight chance it'll rain on Friday and Saturday, and, says assistant trainer Galen May, "He just loves the mud. I hope it does rain."

5. Hollendorfer, who is headquartered in Northern California, is always in the conversation, along with Bill Mott and Todd Pletcher, when the topic is "Best Trainer Who Has Never Won the Derby." He has never gotten to the starting gate with a horse as good as this one.

So my bet is on Chocolate Candy!