Fennel, chilli and chocolate sausages

Chocolate sausages?! Has Browners gone completely mad?

Pork goes well with chilli...

Pork also goes well with fennel...

Pork and chocolate is a combination that you’ll stumble across throughout Latin and South America...

So why not combine it all together?

The warmth of the chilli, the aniseed flavour of the fennel and all round depth from the chocolate build up to create a sausage that’s up there with my favourites.

Make your sausage meat using the 60/40 belly to shoulder ratios as I’ve mentioned elsewhere. Season liberally with salt. Then grate a generous amount of Willy’s Wonky Cacao into the mince. Then sprinkle with chilli seeds and finely ground fennel seeds. If you’ve got some fresh chillies to hand then finely slice them and add to the mix.

To continue the South American theme, Ancho chillies would work well, but if you wanted a smokier flavour then why not experiment with Chipotle chillies which are hard to get your hands on, but well worth the effort.



Mix it all together with some breadcrumbs and then extrude into some natural casings. Leave to rest in the fridge overnight and then serve for lunch along with some buttery mashed potato, iron rich greens and fennel gratin. The chocolate helps to give them depth, whilst the main sensation comes from the fennel and chilli, both of which are very grown up flavours.

As an adventurous alternative make a Mexican mole and serve with the sausages with some rice.



Gareth from Bibendum recommends drinking a bottle of Primitivo with these bangers, whereas Fiona the Winematcher suggests wolfing them down with some New Wave Tuscan red.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Battered Creme Egg in Bruton

Wow. I am ashamed to say the fish and chip shop selling these crispy, coronary inducing confections was closed so I haven't had a chance to sample one. But, rest assured when I next visit Bruton I'll give one a try and tell you all about it.

I just love the line, "Cadbury's may splatter 'em, but we batter 'em". Surely someone from Publicis is behind this!

Green and Blue Chocolate and Wine Pairing

Cowie and I were delighted to be invited to a fantastic wine and chocolate pairing evening at Green and Blue in East Dulwich. It's a brilliant wine merchant, deli and restaurant that I am very glad to have come across given that it's well within range from Brixton.



As the sign righty points out they were the best small wine merchant in the UK at the Decanter awards.



The purpose of our session was to show a bunch of food bloggers that some wines are a great match for certain types of chocolate. For far better write ups than this one, have a look at what Gourmet Chick had to say as well as what the lovely Dinner Diary thought. I'm sure Chris from Cheese and Biscuits, Helen from Food Stories and Katrina from Chocolate Chilli Cupcake will all have something to say about it too. So keep your eyes peeled.

Kate Thal, the owner and sommelier extraordinaire, introduced us to the concept of pairing wine with chocolate with an almost poetic spiel before letting us meander our way through the tasting at our own pace. All the wines were paired with chocolate from Montezuma which I have now fallen head over heels with.

We started with a New Zealand Pinot Noir called Amisfield that almost paired with some wonderful Montezuma milk chocolate. Maybe we hadn't warmed up yet. But we all felt it didn't marry as well as we expected. Having said that, once the wine had settled in the glass and we weren't so greedy with the amount of chocolate we were scoffing the results were much better. A hit... but not a palpable one.





The second wine was far more robust. If the Pinot was like Darren Anderton, this one was more like a refined version of David Batty in his glory days at Leeds United. The Radford Dale Merlot, from South Africa, was greeted with adoration by the group. If Helen of Troy's face launched a thousand ships, then Sideways launched a thousand years of woe on merlot (pronounced the American way). With Montezuma's sensationally good dark side of milk chocolate it was sublime.





Steven hypothesised that the higher the cocoa content of the chocolate the more tannin the wine needs to be able to cope. The next pairing confirmed this immediately. We were introduced to a wine from the Bandol region in Southern France.





The wine was dark. Dusty. Intensely savoury. Almost gasping to be paired with chocolate so dark it might well contain anti-matter. Put these two broody beasts together and you are left with a scene from a gothic novel. I doubt this would be to everyone's tastes. It was quite divisive. But if you like things like licorice, bitter marmalade and you smoke 80 a day, then this would suit you perfectly!

The night, as Harvey Dent says, is darkest before the dawn... and so verily we were led unto the promised land of white chocolate. I know I'm supposed to screw up my face and look down on white chocolate with the sort of disdain Parisian men reserve for American tourists ordering "freedom fries", but I rather like it. Especially when it's from Montezuma. Whilst I liked the idea of serving it with a light, fresh white from Italy, I wasn't a big fan of the Muscato d'Asti called Bera. No doubt it was a fine example of the wine. But after all the bitterness and depth of the darker chocolates and reds, I just found it a bit sweet. That said, I did appreciate ending on a light and floral note.





We were treated to a fantastic cheese and meat platter at the end which made for a very welcome respite from the onset of diabetes and obesity. Only then did it dawn on me that we'd done everything backwards! Maybe it would all work better in reverse? Who's up for a reverse dinner party?



Thanks again to Kate and the team at Green and Blue. You've opened our minds and made me realise how hard it is to write about wine!

Cool Chocolate Calorie Counter

I love this. Would it work for any other product I wonder?

This is from El Manco

"“Rompibollo” is a chocolate board which can be easly divided in pieces of different dimensions. On the relief of each piece, it’s shown the caloria count of chocolate."

Chocolate Shoes are taking Europe's Capital Cities by Storm

Maybe that's a slight exaggeration! But having seen these gorgeous looking chocolate stilettos in a Parisian shop window on Tuesday... I then saw the less sexy versions below in Selfridges.





Typical! The French ones are sexy and expensive and the English versions are dumpy and cheaper!

Update!

I have just spotted them again - this time at the Realfood Festival... They are taking over the world.

Chocolate Pencils

Amazing choclate pencils from Off the Meat Hook:

"I've been drooling over this photo of chocolate pencils from Le Chocolat de H, an arty, high-concept, high-end chocolatier in Tokyo.

They wanted to emphasize the shavings- which in a pencil constitute waste- as a positive product instead of a waste product, so they've included a handy dandy sharpener so you can shave your pencils on top of a dessert. Brilliant and interactive!

They don't appear to be for sale online yet, so unless you are reading this post from Roppongi you may have a hard time getting your hands on a set."

Awesome Chocolate Keyboard

Geeky chocolate. Nice.

From Gizmondo.

Sentimental Chocolates

I saw these on Coolhunting and thought how awesome they are. Would make a great little valentine's day pressie.

The only downside is that the only place that sells them seems to be in Austrailia called BaskaJon.

Scrabble Chocolate

This is brilliant. I really want this. Nerdy and tasty. Could it get any better? You can get it from Mary and Matt's General Store.

I guess they'd better watch out that they don't get sued like the guys who invented Scrabulous on Facebook. For more on the scandal read the Guardian aticle here.

Store Cupboard Challenge No. 1 - Hot Chocalate Fondant

It was a gloomy Sunday afternoon outside so I decided it was time to do a spot of cooking.

One of Browny and my New Year Resolutions is to cook something out of one of our many many recipe books. As since we are somehow still struggling through January, I gave myself the added task of cooking something using only what is currently in my fridge or cupboards.

So here's what I came up with.

Cookery Book - Gordon Ramsay's EASY
Recipe - Hot Chocolate Fondant



The chocolate fondant is such a classic pud and something that I, well Browny, would only ever order in a restaurant. However, it really is much easier than it looks and everyone should have a go to impress your loved ones!

So here are the ingredients..



Chocolate, butter, caster sugar, cocoa, flour, 1 egg and 1 extra yoke.



Weigh, whiz, bake and most importantly eat!



And here are the mouth watering results. Go for it.. As Gordan says it is easy as pie!







Delicious.

Cowie's Famous New Year Fridge Cake

New Year is here and what better way to celebrate than to send up some fireworks and tuck into something sweet before having to make resolutions about what to do for the year ahead!

Cowie is without question the Queen of the Fridge Cake. She's been experimenting for a while now. We've had bubble wrap used to create an interesting texture, white chocolate layers and this time Cadbury's Mini Eggs... is it Easter already?

All you do is melt a scary amount of chocolate, crush up some digestives, add whatever goodies you want including raisins, Malteasers, golden syrup and then pour it all into a cling film lined dish. Pop it in the fridge and slice it up when it's time for a major sugar rush. Be warned. It's very rich!



Everyone loves these. Cowie is constantly being asked for the recipe and uses them as little treats for colleagues at work. They certainly seem to make her popular!



O.... and you have to dress up in your finest frock to serve them!

Amazing Bubble Wrap Chocolate

I've been pestering Cowie to be more adventurous with her Cowie classics. So I donated her some bubble wrap courtesy of our dispatch department at work... and last night she created the best ever chocolate fridge cake... with bubble wrap dimples!

Inspired by the photo below from Delessio's market:



Rob was a bit confused about the whole thing but everyone else bloody loved it. It's a combination of two things that get people excited: bubble wrap and chocolate.

To see more check out the article on NotCot.