Ice cold chocolate

A fresh-from-the-freezer Reece Peanut Butter Cup

Mars and Snickers bars "available chilled" at a local sporting event

I like my chocolate ice cold. There's something I just enjoy about the crisp, crunchy snap of chocolate fresh from the fridge (or occasionally the freezer). Obviously, not all chocolate does cold well. The best candidates I've found for the fridge are things like Reece Peanut Butter Cups or Bars (but not Pieces), Kit Kat, Green and Black's White Chocolate and other things that are covered with or made entirely of relatively thin milk or white chocolate. I'm also told that freezing York Peppermint patties (but apparently not Pep) yields an amazingly refreshing treat. Dark chocolate and thicker milk chocolate can also be chilled as long as it's done carefully as they can become quite brittle. Even some chocolate bar makers are merchandising their products cold (see banner above for Mars and Snickers "available chilled" at BMO Field).

Although some say that refrigerating chocolate can result in so-called "chocolate bloom", I've rarely encountered this problem myself and tend to believe it's more the result of a quality issues with the chocolate. So if you haven't already, I recommend trying your favourite chocolate straight from the fridge, especially during the summer when chocolate is prone to melting.

No new posts until July

We're on an family trip for a few weeks where we'll be enjoying the gastronomy of Croatia and Serbia. We're doing our best to document the food and drink experience on the way so we'll have lots of interesting ideas to share when we return.
Until then!

Random ingredient recipe (and low-carb idea): Cauliflower straciatella soup

Last night our fridge was empty, save a few random items. We had several heads of cauliflower, a half dozen eggs and a variety of cheeses including a Pecorino-Romano. In the freezer we had an open one litre container of chicken stock. For reasons I cannot explain, when confronted with a random assortment of ingredients like this, I've been known to dream up some peculiar recipe ideas. Behold my Cauliflower Straciatella Soup! (Please scroll down to see my approximate preparation instructions)

What you'll need:

• 1 medium-sized head of cauliflower, crumbled (see note below)
• 4 cups of chicken broth
• 3 cups of water
• nutmeg to taste
• 4 eggs, beaten
• dried parsley flakes or fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, to taste
• about 3/4 cup of loosely-packed shredded pecorino-romano cheese, or to taste
• salt and pepper

Note about crumbled cauliflower: Crumble the cauliflower with your hands as best you can until it resemble a very coarsely crumbled feta (very small chunks). Because we're going for the coarse crumbled texture of the florets, set aside any excess stalk or stems as you do this (save them for a veggie stock or for steaming as a side if you like).

Put the stock, water, cauliflower and nutmeg in a large stock pot and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, pour in the beaten eggs and use a fork to quickly stir the egg mixture up in the pot and spread it evenly throughout the soup. Add the parsley. Lower the heat slightly to a brisk simmer (medium-high heat) and continue to cook for approximately 15 to 20 minutes, until the cauliflower become soft but not mushy. Remove from heat. Sprinkle or shred in the pecorino romano and season with salt and pepper to taste.

With this recipe I discovered that cauliflower, nutmeg and sharp cheese happen to complement each other quite nicely, based on a suggestion from one of my new favourite books, The Food Thesaurus. With that said, I will admit that judged solely based on it aroma, most people would likely pass over this soup. Cauliflower and sharp cheese are both rather strong smelling ingredients, but when it comes to flavour, there's something about this mixture of ingredients that just seems to work.

Personally, I love it; Nat has yet to try it.