Last week I had the good fortune of visiting Tain-l’Hermitage, a town in the southeastern quarter of France, near Valence. It is right in the middle of the Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage wine country, in a gorgeous area that’s full of peach, cherry and apricot orchards. But me, I was there for the chocolate: Tain is also home to the Valrhona chocolate factory, and I’d been invited to take a tour.

We spent the day in paper hats, paper coats, and paper shoes (v. becoming), going in and out of large halls housing huge machinery, fat bags of cacao beans and ripples of chocolate, breathing in the intoxicating scents cacao emits as it is submitted to the many torments (cleaned, roasted, husked, crushed, ground, conched, molded, cooled, wrapped) that will turn it from bitter bean to the voluptuous antidepressant we know and love.

And the only thing I love more than chocolate is understanding how stuff works, so this was very much my idea of a happy Tuesday — despite the fact I’d had to get up at 4:45am to take the train, but I am nothing if not committed.

Most of the flavor components of chocolate are “trapped” in the cacao butter, and it’s only when the chocolate melts that they are released. Conveniently, the magic happens right around mouth temperature.

At the end of this full and instructive day, we were treated to a session with Vanessa Lemoine, the in-house expert in sensory analysis, a discipline in which the five human senses are used to describe and analyze products.

Among her responsibilities at Valrhona, she is in charge of training the chocolate tasters who assess the ten-kilo samples that are sent ahead of any cacao shipment. The beans from each origin are expected to conform to a particular flavor profile, according to the particularities of the cacao variety, the region’s terroir, and the production method that Valrhona and the growers have agreed upon. Any crop that differs significantly from that profile won’t be accepted for purchase. This is to ensure that the quality and personality of the single-origin chocolates as well as the blends remain steady, so that the chocolatiers and pastry chefs who have built their own recipes on a particular chocolate can in turn offer consistency to their customers.

The thing is, you can’t judge a crop by its bean: at this stage, the aromatic components are dormant, and its full potential will only be revealed after the beans are processed and turned into actual chocolate. So the sample beans go through a mini production line, and emerges as chocolate the tasters will grade along thirty different descriptors. A tough job, I’m sure — and I’m not being ironic.

It takes many training sessions to reach the finesse of palate that’s required of these tasters, but Vanessa Lemoine gave us a short primer on how to taste chocolate, and I thought it so interesting I wanted to share it here. The process is in some ways similar to wine tasting, so if you’re a honed wine taster, you’re that far ahead.

Taza Stone-Ground Chocolate

Continue reading »

Bouchées croustillantes au chocolat, amandes et gingembre

These chocolate clusters are the result of my recent and irrepressible urge to declutter. I would chalk it up to the advent of spring if it hadn’t been so stubbornly cold, and if I didn’t find myself in that state of I-can’t-bear-to-live-with-this-stuff-for-a-minute-longer several times a year.

Actually, one of my resolutions for the new year is to take on at least one decluttering project every weekend. It can be something quick, like sorting through the restaurant business cards we’ve accumulated over the years and removing the ones we’ll likely never visit again (done), or something ambitious, like reorganizing our overstuffed basement, recycling/tossing/giving old things away (check).

My rule of thumb is to use 1 cup of dried fruits and nuts plus 1 cup of puffed grain for each 250 grams (9 ounces) of chocolate; this creates an ideal crisp/crunchy/chewy texture.

It’s not that we buy that much stuff to begin with, but clutter seems to build up out of nowhere; perhaps a good theoretical physicist will one day study the phenomenon. In any case, I find it relaxing to know I have a counter-strategy in place, and it’s easy to tailor the size of the endeavor to the time and energy I have, yet still get a nice feeling of accomplishment. I even write down what I’ve done each weekend, to keep track; I don’t go so far as to award myself little congratulatory stickers, but I’m this close*.

The approach applies to the kitchen, too, and I try to go through my cabinets and drawers with as unsentimental an eye as I can summon, and prune, prune, prune. What I no longer need I sell or give away. There is a special shelf in the lobby of my apartment building, and the unspoken rule is that one can leave objects, books, and magazines there for others to take. They’re unfailingly snatched up in a matter of hours, and it’s fun to think that some of my unneeded utensils simply live on another floor now.

And of course, my pantry also needs to undergo that treatment on a regular basis, to refresh my memory as to what it contains (the cabinet is so ill-conceived I have to take everything out to get a good look), group ingredients together with a semblance of logic, and identify those that need to be used up soon.

Chocolate clusters to the rescue!

Unfailingly, I turn up small leftover amounts of dried fruit and nuts I want to use before they have a chance to shrivel up entirely or go rancid**, and these chocolate clusters are a delicious way to do so: they’re simply made by combining your choice of nuts, dried fruit and puffed grain with melted chocolate, and letting the clusters set.

(And by a happy coincidence, they’re also a perfect use for the box of 1,000 mini paper cups I’ve been working my way through for the past, um, six years.)

The chocolate cluster is a classic confection, but I only started making them after buying some at a chocolate shop in Barcelona a few years ago. Their version was called Trencadent and I couldn’t stop eating them; I tried making them after coming home to Paris, and it turned out to be the easiest thing ever.

A flexible formula for chocolate clusters

My rule of thumb is to use 1 cup of dried fruits and nuts plus 1 cup of puffed grain for each 250 grams (9 ounces) of chocolate; this creates an ideal crisp/crunchy/chewy texture and chocolate-to-filling ratio.

Make up your own combos depending on what you have on hand!

The puffed grain is there mostly for texture; the flavor is brought on by the nuts and the dried fruits. The following pairings I’ve tried and liked:
– almonds + candied ginger (as below),
– pistachios + dried apricots,
– peanuts + dried cherries,
– Brazil nuts + dried figs,
– almonds + candied orange rind,
– hazelnuts + raisins.

But really, you can make up your own combos depending on what you have on hand, or visit Sara or Dorie for more suggestions.

You could certainly add some spice or a touch of ground chili, but neither is necessary. Just remember to toast the nuts, so their flavor will be at its maximum.

And let me remind you that Easter comes early this year — Easter Sunday is on April 4 — so if you’re in the market for an easy giftable chocolate idea, this may be it!

~~~

* Need help decluttering? Take a look at the Apartment Therapy Home Cures, which offer helpful weekly assignments, advice, and support. The spring home cure has just started, and the kitchen cure is under way.

** My freezer is too small and too humid to keep nuts safely, but if you have room in yours, it is said to be a good way to ward off rancidity.

Continue reading »

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Ne pas y aller avec le dos de la cuiller.”

Literally translated as, “not going at it with the back of the spoon,” it is a colloquial expression that means acting bluntly and deliberately, without restraint or moderation. It is often used in the context of interpersonal relationships, and especially when someone is particularly plain-spoken about an issue (equivalent then to “not mincing one’s words”).

Note: the French word for spoon can be spelled cuiller or cuillère; both spellings are correct. One should probably choose a spelling and stick to it for the sake of consistency, and when I stop to think about it I prefer the former, but I seem to go back and forth between the two in my writing.

Example: “Tu as lu sa critique du dernier film des frères Coen ? Il n’y va pas avec le dos de la cuiller !” “Did you read his review of the latest Coen brothers movie? He doesn’t go at it with the back of the spoon!”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

Continue reading »

Once you have a natural starter alive and kicking on your counter, stealing the occasional banana from the fruit bowl, it’s hard to go back to baking bread with commercial yeast.

Not only would that feel like a bit of a betrayal (though you can always blindfold the jar of starter or work under the cover of night) but every loaf is an opportunity to strengthen your starter as well as your skills. And frankly, you’ve gotten used to the vivid flavor and lasting freshness of sourdough-powered bread, so you’re a bit spoiled.

Most breads leavened with commercial yeast can be leavened with a natural starter. It is just a matter of converting the recipe; all you need is a calculator and a play-it-by-ear disposition.

That’s not to say you want to limit yourself to those recipes written with a starter in mind: even though baking with a natural starter has the ancestral high ground and is regaining considerable popularity of late, it is still practiced by a minority of home bakers, and most of the bread recipes out there call for commercial yeast.

But of course, most breads (see caveats below) leavened with commercial yeast can be leavened with a natural starter. It is just a matter of converting the recipe; all you need is a calculator and a play-it-by-ear disposition.

So, how do you go about it? There is no single method* but I have had good success with mine, so I wanted to share it with you below. If you want to chime in with your own method and experience, I’ll be most interested to hear them.

Continue reading »