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I came upon this story form Laura Davies at the South Wales Evening News and couldn’t resist putting it here - the ultimate in curry - a White Chocolate Chicken Curry. Im going to have to visit ….
Anybody for hot chocolate? A Llanelli restaurant is offering the ultimate sin for any chocoholic - a chocolate curry.The invention of two brothers, who thought they would use their culinary skills to experiment with the much-loved ingredient, has become one of the best signature dishes at Moods Indian Cuisine on Station Road.
Dubbed the Indian alternative to the battered Mars bar, co-owner Mohammed Ahmed said the dish had become a talking point at the restaurant which opened six months ago.
He said: “We wanted to do something different. Chocolate is used in lots of cooking. In Mexico they use it in hot dishes, and, of course, you have the battered Mars bar so we thought we would experiment with it ourselves.”
The dish, chicken cooked with white chocolate and vanilla essence, is much like a Chicken korma (more…)
I have spent the last few days in anticipation of a new delight. A Farm Shop opened at a local Garden Centre complex nearby the other week and we went to check out the fare on offer, we do try to buy most of our food from local sources. Imagine my delight when I saw nestling on the shelves some rather elegant looking bars of chocolate – very simply packaged to show off the contents. Granted it wasn’t going to be local but given the nature of the shop, the quality of the display and the price I thought to myself ‘this should be good’.
Eventually I got round to taking a photo (not brilliant I’m afraid) before getting down to the serious business of eating it. The manufacturer’s ‘Ko-Koa’ had done a good job with the point of sale material and the smaller bars were simply mounted on gold board and wrapped in cellophane so that you could see exactly what you were getting. The bar I chose was the Marbled plain chocolate with white chocolate swirl, small size – about 3 inches square, weighing 75gms.
It was such a disappointment. The smell when I opened the packet was of vanilla, not chocolate and that should have forewarned me. Granted the cocoa solids were only 55% in the plain and 28% in the white, but there was absolutely no discernable chocolate taste at all, the overwhelming impression in your mouth was of a sweet, hard lump. The texture was smooth but you felt that you needed to chew to try and wring some flavour out of it rather than the more common experience where the chocolate flavour develops in your mouth as it melts gently on your tongue. I wondered if it might just be me having an ‘off’ day but sad to say, my daughter felt exactly the same as I did. At almost 3GBP ($6) for a small bar – we were distinctly underwhelmed by it and will not be trying it again.
I can hardly believe this news story - I found myself checking the date to see if it was 1st April! Granted Ferrero Rocher are not my favourite but….
No interest, chocolate eating contest cancelled
Mar 14, 2008 01:25 PM
THE CANADIAN PRESS
STELLARTON, N.S.–It sounds hard to believe, but a chocolate eating contest at a Nova Scotia museum has been cancelled because of lack of interest.
The contest was supposed to be held tomorrow at the Museum of Industry in Stellarton, N.S., the New Glasgow News reported today.
But museum spokeswoman Denise Taylor says only three contestants signed up.
Contestants were to eat as many Ferrero Rocher chocolates as they could in one minute.
I thought I would start this homage to chocolate blog with some good news - apparently the increasing demand for gourmet chocolate is bringing about a revival in fortunes for the Cocoa Farmers of Central America.
According to a recent article by Brian Harris which I came across on Reuters the local population are once again planting cocoa because of the increased prices that can be obtained for high quality cocoa. The added benefit that most people are happy to pay a premium for Fair Trade supplies makes it even more woth while for the farmers, who have long been taken advantage of by some of the bulk chocolate manufacturers. If the chocolate is also grown organically then there is an even higher premium which gives the farmer a fair return for his labour.
Most of the chocolate we eat comes from Africa but I have to confess to a personal fondness for the South American chocolate, the partial fermentation of the beans seems to give it an extra richness, so this is good news.
If you would like to read Brian Harris’ article, you will find it here.
I have spent the last few days in anticipation of a new delight. A Farm Shop opened at a local Garden Centre complex nearby the other week and we went to check out the fare on offer, we do try to buy most of our food from local sources. Imagine my delight when I saw nestling on the shelves some rather elegant looking bars of chocolate – very simply packaged to show off the contents. Granted it wasn’t going to be local but given the nature of the shop, the quality of the display and the price I thought to myself ‘this should be good’.