Hi and welcome, as this is the first post on my new blog, I thought that I’d open with a classic.
Hervé This‘ chocolate chantilly. Essentially it is a chocolate mousse made purely with chocolate and water. The theory is that in the right ratio, the fat in the chocolate will emulsify with the water. Chocolate mousse made with just water and chocolate
wicked huh….
Here’s how you do it:
For 500g
230ml H2O
270g best quality bitter chocolate.
That’s it! Ok, there is one drawback you have to be very precise with your measuring because it is all in the ratio of chocolate to water.
Setup an ice-bath (one larger bowl half-full with ice and a smaller one that will fit in the larger on & rest on the ice). Break the chocolate in small pieces and melt together with the water in a small saucepan. Let the mixture boil briefly and once the chocolate is completely melted pour it into the smaller, empty bowl. Whisk the mixture over the ice and within a couple of minutes, it should go like chocolate whipped cream.
Make sure to stop whisking just before you think it’s ready as it will thicken a little after. If you do go too far, you can always re-melt the mixture and start again. Beauty!
If it doesn’t whisk up, there are two possibilities. One, you have too much water. Solution: add a little chocolate
Two, your whisk doesn’t have enough wires. Solution: Buy a decent balloon whisk.
Source: Heston Blumenthal (2002); Family Food
There was a reason why I started this post and that was because I wanted to tell you that you can actually replace the water with just about any fluid (within reason :)). We have made it work with red & white wine, beer, ginger ale……So you can make a savoury chocolate mousse. Hence chocolate salty balls.
We ended up making it with a light lager and combining it with smoked eel and glasswort. Sounds hellish, tastes heavenly