It's cold out! It's hot chocolate time!

I've been making hot chocolate in the same way for as long as I can remember ie as soon as the penny dropped. Some things don't warrant a recipe, they're about preference and they're instinctive. I feel this way about a lot of classic food. I've never in my life looked at a recipe for Yorkshire Pudding, for example. I make them the way my Mum did, and she, the way her Mum did because that's the way we like them. I did however do a little hot chocolate research ahead of a demonstration I'm preparing for and to save you the horror and hassle of producing something that is either laced with sugar, glucose or (heaven forbid) drinking chocolate powder, I decided to share my original and unchanged recipe with you. It's SO easy...there's no weighing, measuring or faffing required and the entire thing takes 5 mins from start to finish.

Needless to say use the best dark (upwards of 65%) chocolate and 100% cocoa powder you can afford and say 'ta ta' right now if you're on a diet ; )

INGREDIENTS:
Full Fat Milk (1 mug per person)
100% Cocoa Powder (1 heaped teaspoon per person/per mug of milk)
Dark Chocolate (1 handful of broken chocolate pieces or buttons per person/per mug of milk)

METHOD:
Pour a roomy mug of milk in to a pan (bar a tiny bit) and turn up the heat.
Heap the cocoa powder into the leftover milk, mix well to create a paste and add to the milk in the pan.
As the milk and cocoa paste warms up a little throw in your chocolate pieces or buttons, very gently stirring all the while until all the pieces have melted.
As soon as the milk begins to boil, turn the heat down to its lowest setting and if you have a mini electric milk whisk give it a good blast for aeration and froth. If not, you can achieve a good aeration by pouring the hot liquid into a flask and shaking it like your life depends!
Pour and slurp

OPTION:

If you absolutely *must* have sugar, add to taste at the end

For an extra indulgent texture, use 1/3 single cream to 2/3 whole milk

If you really feel like going for it, dollop some whipped cream and grated chocolate on top.

TIP:

Make up extra mixture, leave until stone cold and whizz up in a blender with some crushed ice (if required) for the most indulgent chocolate milkshake you've ever tasted. I kid you not.

St Melons

We're approaching summer, I'm in one of my favourite places in England, Whitstable, and I'm craving salty sweetness on a lighter note. After a looooong afternoon sleep today I woke up thirsty and famished. I had all the ingredients to hit the hungry spot and within 5 minutes I was eating.

There's no recipe required for melon and ham. Age-old and thrown together, so long as the melon is tender and juicy and your ham, properly aged and flavoursome you'll have an instant mouthwatering hit on your hands. Just melon and ham no longer satisfies me these days..unless I'm in Spain or Italy eating THE best ingredients at their optimum. I always involve some kind of cheese and a dressing for embellishment...and a maybe a bit of bite.



ingredients:
Aged Serrano or Parma Ham
Cantaloupe Melon
Buffalo Mozzerella
Balsamic Vinegar (Aged and sticky)
Smoked/lightly salted Almonds (flaked or whole)



Method:
Cut half the melon in to nice big chunks
Tear open the mozzerella place on and in between the melon
Drape over the ham however you wish
Drizzle with balsamic and throw over the nuts

To test a Melon for ripeness bang its bottom with the palm of your hand and listen for a hollow sound, it should also feel dense and heavy. If its a corker you'll be able to smell the flesh outside of the rind and the base will give a little when pressed.



Honeydew and Galia melon are also lovely here but I'd steer away from Watermelon. You could also use lovely ripe peaches if melon absolutely isn't your thing and parmesan and rocket work a treat too.

Try these guys for smoked nuts if you don't have a good market close by http://tiny.cc/9m8ae

Trulee it is Brulee

Creme Brulee...gorgeous, velvety, creamy deliciousness and super easy to make using the cooker top method.

I was taught to cook the custard mix in a shallow oven bain marie. I love creme brulee this way but waiting to find out if your custard has any air bubbles around the sides when you take it out of the oven is agony. As far as I'm concerned, a single air bubble ruins the whole experience. The mix can also become too firm which doesn't have a very pleasant mouth feel.

So, here is a really simple way to cook and set the custard without the faff and bother of the bain. You still have to have your wits about you but I promise the results will blow you and your guests away. The texture of this mix is a little different to the bain marie method, more gooey but no less delightful.

I set my custard in something pretty. Any excuse to get my beloved china out and I'm in! You can set yours in any old vessel..even a large one that everyone can dive in to. If you want the sugary topping, make sure it's mega heat proof.



Ingredients: Serves 4
4 large egg yolks
3 tbsp caster sugar (plus more for the top) I usually only go for 2 tbsp because I'm not a sweet fanatic
1 pint/500ml double cream
1 vanilla pod
Raspberrys
Icing sugar

Custard Method:
Heat the cream in a heavy bottomed pan on a moderate heat. While that's on the go beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a heatproof bowl. When the cream is just below boiling point (important) pour it over the egg and sugar mixture, stirring all the time. Slit open the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds, adding them and the now empty pod to the bowl.
Place the bowl over a pan which is half full of simmering (not boiling) water and stir and scrape with a rubber spatula until the custard thickens. Don't be tempted to put the mix directly on to heat, the whole thing will scramble.
Pass through a sieve into your four vessels.
Once completely cold, cover and chill. To get the best texture from this mix you should make it the day before and chill in a very cold fridge for at least 24 hours.

Sugar Topping Method:
If you have a blow torch just go for it.
If not, put your grill on to its highest setting and wait for at least 15 minutes
Place the pots on a tray (as near to the grill bars as possible) and wait for the sugar to bubble and you're away.

I'm not a fan of the traditional sugary topping - too sweet for me. I eat with raspberries and a fine dusting of icing sugar.

Whodunnit?

Selling my chocolates face to face with my customers is so unbelievably rewarding and invaluable to me. If you are a small, niche producer and like me you think, obsess, dream and even have nightmares about your product there's nothing quite like receiving an instantaneous thumbs-up for your efforts.

Showing your product at food festivals, fairs and farmers markets is a brilliant barometer of how good your product is. There's nowhere to hide and nothing to separate you from the customer comments and facial expressions other than your flimsy stall so you better be ready and be as confident as you possibly can be with your product before you brave the unapologetically opinionated masses.



About 10 years ago I became a devotee of the organic movement and a little later became concerned with food production, provenance and trading ethics and I've talked a little bit before about my experiences with sourcing fine, organic and ethical chocolate; that I found almost impossible. I digress. While I'm sensible enough to know that not everyone shares my view and that in fact I'm in a minority, my extensive consumer research all but proved that a niche/gourmet food buyer (the kind of person who enthuses about food and attends farmers markets and food events across the country in search of quality or simply for something different) would absolutely be concerned with pesticides, trading ethics, E numbers etc. Not so. Not a single customer has asked me if my chocolate is ethical, organic, natural, whether it contains E numbers and so on and I have to say I'm surprised. When I'm researching and sourcing ingredients or conceptualising a new flavour I'm often so preoccupied with the aforementioned that it's small wonder I ever produce a solitary truffle.



So, reporting back from ground level I can tell you unequivocally that what the customer really wants to know is if you have made the product yourself. "Are you the producer?" and "Did you make this yourself?" are the two most common questions I'm asked. You could put this down to geography or demographics of course and maybe time will tell a different story but all of this has really made me think. Media and marketing groups muddy our perceptions more than I ever thought possible. There is still nothing and no better way of measuring your product than good old fashioned face to face customer contact and I hope that will continue to thrive.

For more information on excellent farmers markets and food festivals in your area please do not hesitate to contact me. You can meet me and sample my chocolates at the Speciality & Gourmet Food Market in Nottingham and various places around the country, all year round. For more information, regular updates and exclusive chocolate offers visit

http://www.boutiquearomatique.com/market/

Sign-up today!

Love, Shelly

Sausages & Lentils a la Nigella et Rosanna

I can't quite believe it now but I'd never eaten lentils outside of an Indian restaurant until about seven years ago. If you came from 'up North' lentils were suspiciously and unfairly derided as sandal and sock-wearing fodder; reserved only for chanting prats - their words, not mine. It's a cliche but my life pretty much turned upside down when I moved to London and thank GOD it did.

I made my lentilly fateful trip to The Epicerie (attached to Conran and Orrery) on Marylebone High St one lunchtime, it was nearing the end of the day and pretty much the only thing left to take out was puy lentils with smoked sausage and beetroot.

http://www.orreryrestaurant.co.uk/restaurants/orrery/epicerie



Clinging to the counter with hunger I went for it and never looked back. I'm a big Nigella Lawson fan and I return to one of her lentil recipes (in part) again and again which is the one I'm sharing here. The other half of the dish is inspired by my lovely friend Rosanna. We had the funniest time on her gypsy themed hen on a barge on the Oxfordshire waterways. 10 girls, copious prosecco and a whole load of dressing up = ACE! The highlight for me however was Rosanna's gorgeous lentil dish...I ended up finishing off everyone else's plate...no change there then!

Ingredients: Serves 4:
3–4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
Sea Salt
500g Puy lentils
1 fat clove garlic - skin removed
8 really good quality sausages - anything with tomato works well and preferably Italian
100ml red wine
50ml water
Very fresh flat-leaf parsley for sprinkling - curly parsley will not do
Few tbsp of ricotta cheese
Very good raspberry or sherry vinegar
Plain/non pickled whole beetroot, quartered

Method:
To cook the lentils, put 2–3 tablespoons of the oil into a good-sized saucepan (and one which has a lid that fits) on the heat and when it’s warm add the chopped onion. Sprinkle with salt (which helps prevents it browning) and cook over a low to medium heat till soft (about 5 minutes). Add the lentils, stir well and then cover generously with cold water. Bring to the boil, then cover and let simmer gently for half an hour or so until cooked and most, if not all, the liquid’s absorbed. I don’t add salt at this stage since the sauce provided by the sausages later (and which will be poured over the lentils) will be pretty salty itself. So, wait and taste. You can cook these in advance.

When either the lentils are nearly ready or you’re about to reheat them, put a heavy-based frying pan on the hob, cover with a film of oil and add the bruised garlic. Cook for a few minutes then add and brown the sausages. When the sausages are brown on both sides – which won’t take more than 5 minutes or so – throw in the wine and water and let bubble up. Cover the pan, either with a lid or tin foil, and cook for about 15 minutes. Using a fork, mash the now soft garlic into the sauce and taste for seasoning, adding a little more water if it’s too strong. Courtesy of NL.

Drain the lentils well and transfer to a roomy serving bowl. Add the beetroot and a whole bunch of roughly chopped parsley and very gently amalgamate. Sit the sausages on top and pour over your gravy. Drizzle with a little olive old and sprinkle over your preferred vinegar. For the finale, add a few good blobs of ricotta on top.



Don't be tempted to use pre-cooked, tinned lentils. Fine if you have to use them, I just think they're always a bit too soft, boggy and waterlogged. I've swapped Rosie's sherry vinegar for raspberry, just because I tried it and it worked a dream.

Colemans works excellently well on the side.

Paying The Price For Cheap Chocolate

Although I wasn't at all surprised by some of the scenes in the Panorama documentary 'Chocolate The Bitter Truth' (which shone a light on child labour, trafficking and slavery in cocoa farms; particularly on the Ivory Coast) I felt no less uncomfortable and understandably angry. I first started researching cocoa around six years ago and although there were many uncomfortable revelations, I had no idea that children were being abused in this way. My initial concern was with the persistent raping of third world commodities making us richer and them poorer. I became aware of the issues raised in the documentary (and more) much later on and I can tell you, chocolate as a commodity is a tricky, often corrupt and sometimes dangerous business.
For many years I have had personal issues with some of the ethical organisations. In the end, what they do is pretty astonishing and I'd rather they be in effect than not. They do an excellent job of setting a fair base/market rate for the farmers and growers, but, that price is often relatively low and shared between so many people that it makes little difference to the quality of life in the long term. In addition to this, there isn’t an ethically stamped chocolate bar on the market that can genuinely hold itself up as 'fine’ and the same can pretty much be said for organic. What is available lacks in favour and flavour so for the chocolatier like me who wants only to work with ethical, excellent quality chocolate with complexity of flavour, grown and nurtured with care and expertise the options are very slim.
Way back at the start of my research I was shocked to find there were very few ethical chocolate options available to the fine chocolatier (ethical and organic combined much less so) and once it became clear to me that commercial, premium mass-market and a whole lot of seemingly luxury chocolate was all purchased from the same massive corporations throughout Europe I was pretty horrified. Regurgitating the exact same chocolate as all the big supermarkets and high street chocolate shops as my own just wasn't going to cut it for me and in fact I felt the chocolate lover was being conned.
For a short while I was involved with a quite brilliant initiative that aimed to reach and end to a lot of poverty in underdeveloped countries; rich in commodities such as essential oils, cocoa, sugar and spices by building manufacturing plants, providing a plethora of jobs from line workers, administrators, packers and drivers. Imagine how much more money can be kept inside a tiny, impoverished country and how big a positive it would be to suddenly have industry? Not forgetting a peoples sense of pride, achievement, self worth and what that could mean for them in the future. The initiative had big and bold ambitions and admittedly it was an enormous undertaking and in the end could not be sustained, sadly due to lack of funding from the west - which brings me to the real point of this response. The depressing fact is that in the west we bang on about how terrible life is for people in the underdeveloped world, living in such poverty, yet we do very little to help them. If the sugar corporations wanted to manufacture their sugar in Africa they could. If the big chocolate corporations wanted to manufacture their chocolate in Mexico they could. If a worldwide ring of wealthy businessmen wanted to build manufacturing plants in poor countries for local people to run and work at they could but they don't, and the reason why? Because they want to ship the commodities out of the country as quickly and as cost effectively as they can, keeping the manufacturing and employment food chain in their own countries, thus boosting their own pockets and economies.
I ‘choose’ to pay way above the supposedly ethical market rate for my chocolate. I purchase single origin, traceable chocolate from a responsible, artisan producer who visits, works with and buys his beans directly and often exclusively from farmers in Venezuala, Madagascar and Equador. I pay more because the producer pays more. He pays more for the beans because they are superior quality, are grown and fermented properly, because they are traceable and because it is ‘proper’, ‘responsible’ and as far as we’re concerned, the only way.
Kidnapping, trafficking and enslaving children to work in cocoa farms or anywhere else is the most appalling and desperate situation but many third world inhabitants are desperate to survive and they are using any means they can. Sadly, we are responsible. If we continue our thirst for cheap and continue to look away then this horrendous practice will thrive.
Enjoy your chocolate responsibly http://turl.ca/sshg
If you would like to find out more about where to buy real, fine, ethical chocolate please do not hesitate to contact me.

Peas Louise

God I love pea soup but it's a real divider, especially when it's made with ham hock. It's a love hate soup for sure. I mostly associate pea soup with summer which is daft because we don't have to wait until then. Frozen peas are a dream in soups; much better in fact that pod-fresh. Peas contain a high level of complex carbohydrates and bags of fibre. It's the carbohydrates that make them naturally sweet which is why babies will happily have them introduced to their plate before any other green vegetable. I used to make this for my husband all the time before we got married...I think it sealed the deal and admittedly, it's lifted directly from my friend Jane's book. It's an all-round nutritional and winter winner because it's made with fresh fennel bulb. The aromatic, anise like flavour of fennel just clicks with peas and not unlike celery it has a warming effect on the body. When I eat this soup I end up with cheeks like belisha beacons as the embers of the fennel glow, rest and digest in my stomach. Packed with vitamin C and phytonutrients, it's a bumper boost for your immune system too. Glow make it, it's dead easy.

Ingredients:

600g Fresh Fennel (chopped)

500g Frozen Peas

1 litre of Chicken or Vegetable Stock

A big bunch of fresh Mint (chopped)

Salt & Pepper

Method:

Place fennel, peas and stock in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until the fennel is tender.

Add the chopped mint and scoop out a cupful of the mixture and set aside for later.

Transfer the mixture to a blender and puree the whole thing down

Return the puree to a clean pan and add the cupful of reserved mixture

Salt and Pepper to taste. Et voila!

Serve with slices of oven toasted bread rubbed with garlic, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt.