history - food : chocolate drink

How to make your own chocolate drink

"In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the sea that froths below." ~ 'Rape of the Lock' by Alexander Pope, 1714

Here's the recipe for making a real hot chocolate beverage

Ingredients

1-2kg (2-4pounds) of cocoa beans

A manually operated grinder

Roasting cocao beans:

• Roast the green cocao beans over an open fire, while stirring, until they 'pop' (only 75% should be popped or the beans will burn)

• Peel as quickly as possible while hot (cold beans are harder to peel)

• Grind the beans with a pestle and mortar (the resulting oil that will be produced has a bitter taste)

There are now two alternatives. With oil, which gives you a richer, yet bitter flavour, and without oil a milder form will result:

With oil (crude cocoa tablets):

• Spread aluminium foil or greaseproof paper on a tray, make small piles of the paste and allow to them rest overnight

• In the morning they should be hard tablets

• Remove them from the aluminium foil/greaseproof paper

Without oil (crude cocoa powder):

• Put the paste inside a fine cloth, close the cloth up and squeeze until the oil comes out (similar to making fresh curds and whey): the more that is squeezed out the better.

• What is left now is either crude chocolate tablets or a crude cocoa powder. You can now make a nice beverage by one of the following three methods:

Basic method:

• Boil a litre of milk (or water, like in the ancient Mexican style)

• When the milk is warm (not hot) add a chocolate tablet; broken into pieces

• Stir with a blender (but be careful! the blender's electric cord should NOT touch the pot or any other hot thing around it)

• When the chocolate has dissolved add ½ - ¾ cups of sugar (depending how sweet you like your chocolate) and blend in fast; make sure the sugar is completely dissolved in the chocolate otherwise it will be bitter no matter how much sugar you may add afterwards

• Add a teaspoon of cinnamon or natural vanilla flavour (artificial vanilla flavour with chocolate results in an awful medicine like flavour) if you like, and blend again

• Let the mixture boil, when it starts to get bubbly quickly remove the pan from the stove top, and rest the bottom against a soaked cloth

• Put again on stove top, it should get bubbly almost immediately, remove once again and repeat one last time. This aerates the chocolate which enhances the flavour.

• In a mug, put about 1/2-3/4 of the chocolate mixture, and add cold milk, until the temperature and/or the concentration of the flavour is right for your tastes

• Accompany with French/Danish pastries and enjoy!

Mayan "xocoatl":

• Add the crude powder or the chocolate tablets (broken down in a pestle and mortar) and add to cold water

• Bring to a boil over a medium heat while stirring

The Mayans were said to have added local herbs also but what they might have been, as far as I know, has been lost in antiquity and no doubt no longer exist!

Aztec "Cacahuatl":

• Add the crude powder or the chocolate tablets: broken down in a pestle and mortar and add to cold water (the Aztecs are said to have refined the Mayan "xocoatl", by grinding the powder finer than the Mayans).

• Add some chilli water (chop chillies and soak in boiling water to make a 'tea'), vanilla beans/pods and honey.

• Let the mixture boil while stirring constantly, when it starts to get bubbly quickly remove the pan from the stove top and allow to cool slightly.

• Place back on the flame and continue to stir to the boil again.

• Repeat the cooling and re-boiling.

• Repeat again: this aerates the chocolate which enhances the flavour.

Chef notes:

You should now have a drink similar to the Aztec drink, which should be: finely ground, soft, foamy, reddish, bitter and spicy. No amounts are given, as it is very much a case of producing them to suit your individual taste . . . bon appetit and enjoy!

email chef@tallyrand.info