Gorgeous, Egg-Free Chocolate Mousse with Bourbon

Some days bring you a culinary epiphany.

Several weeks ago I had such a day.  I was lamenting in conversation with a friend, about how my boyfriend is allergic to egg whites, and how that deprives him of chocolate mousse.  My friend Nils replied incredulously: “… but why would you ever need eggs for chocolate mousse?  You only need…”

And there it was, my chocolate mousse epiphany.

Because, apparently (to me now!), when it is stripped down, chocolate mousse only has two ingredients.  Four if you want it to be luxurious.  I did – it was made for Valentine’s Day, and T deserves all there is wonderful in the world.  Every day, actually.  But, I digress.

This mousse has no eggs.  But despite that, it really does have it all – it’s light (in texture, people!), it sets beautifully, it is easy to make, it literally melts on your tongue into a whisper and a kiss of chocolatey bliss – and it can be made with anything from milk to 70% dark chocolate, with brilliant results.  I imagine you could go darker if you are a serious chocaholic!  I have not tried it with white, but that should definitely be attempted!  It can be dressed up with vanilla and a tablespoon or two of your favorite booze, or orange zest or – your imagination is the limit here, but understand this – it does not need these adornments.  It is perfectly perfect on its own, with its two ingredients: whipping quality cream (36-40% fat), and good quality chocolate.  Everything else is frills.

If you want the mousse stiffer and chocolatier, use more chocolate (though I think the 100g specified for 70% cocoa chocolate is pretty chocolatey!), and if you want it softer and silkier, go with a bit more cream.  Incidentally, if you use the darker chocolate, this is also fairly (for a luxury dessert!) LCHF-friendly and low-GI, and so also diabetic-friendly!  Not much sugar in the dark chocolate, and little or none (depends on vanilla sugar) gets added in the making!

The recipe and method could not be simpler.  (You will need an electric mixer with whipping blades unless you are really, really pro with a whisk and have strong arms!)

This will fill two large ramekins, or 2.5 of the non-standard sized ones pictured.

• 2 dl whipping cream
• 100g chocolate of your choice – the mousse in the photo was made using 70% cocoa, but if you like milk chocolate, go for it!  Just buy the good dessert-quality stuff!
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar (the stuff with real vanilla) – optional!
• 1 tablespoon of your favorite liqueur or alcohol – I used Jack Daniels here.  Entirely optional as well.

How to do it – you will need to do this 3-4 hours to allow the mousse to set properly.  It may do so faster or slower depending on the fat content of your cream and chocolate.

• Put chocolate into a bowl over a water bath (double boiler), so that it does not touch the water.  Bring water to low simmer and stir chocolate occasionally till it has nearly melted.  Take off heat and allow to melt completely and cool slightly.
• In the meantime, whip the cream.  Add vanilla sugar mid-whipping (before it is in soft peaks), and alcohol once the cream reaches the soft peak stage. Mix a few seconds more to incorporate.
• Pour the melted chocolate in while whipping the cream further.  The mixture will thicken quickly – beat until it is in stiff peaks.
• Scoop or pipe into ramekins.  I simply scooped it in, and smoothed the top with the back of a teaspoon.
• Cover with cling film and put in the fridge to set.

Decorate with fresh berries, a dollop of whipped cream, or whatever floats your boat.  This is amazing with a glass of port wine, if that is to your liking.

Supermarket Offer Email Outrage

Normally, I have a reasonably good attitude and relationship with my local supermarket.  Yes, I dislike it for edging out my favourite tiny greengrocer on Bold Street which I loved, and with the general dislike of a food professional towards the multiple retailers, but on the other hand, it is a decent supermarket most of the time, the fresh produce is fresh, they often have things I like on offer (nice tomatoes, fruit, nuts, butter, cheese, etc.), and it is close and has good opening hours.  So, it sort of balances out.  I have one of those advantage cards for it, and I have signed up for their weekly emails with offers with the thought that it never hurts to see what they put up on sale… or does it?

I have received one such email last night, and being on a tighter budget this month, trustingly and curiously went to click through it.  “Stock your cupboard for half price!”  Great, that sounds fantastic – and I click the link to be taken to a page which details which products are actually included in this great pantry-stocking offer.  I scroll through the page, and as I do so, a sense of dread slowly overtakes me: all the products on this “cupboard-stocking” offer are, in fact, cookies, biscuits and cheap chocolates in large packs!

What the hell?!  Leaving aside the obesity and diabetes epidemic sweeping the Western world, and the governments’ attempts to do something about it (ineffectual as they are, knocking on the wrong food groups), since when it is the practice to stock one’s pantry with chuffing sweets?!

What is worse, is the insidiousness of this:  what it does, is teach people (because let’s face it, even when we do not mean to, we do tend to internalise what we read, hear or see in the media – that is what most advertising is based on, after all) that “storecupboard favourites” should, in fact, be boxes and bags of chips (what the locals call “crisps”), cookies, chocolate biscuits and candies.  And it is doing it in the times when what we really ought to try to teach the general public is that these things do not, DO NOT! belong in your everyday food consumption, and should be only purchased occasionally and in small quantity as a treat.  (Unless you are striving for obesity and related diseases, of course.  Then by all means, do stock your storecupboard with all this, and eat it daily.  It’s your funeral!)  This goes against any attempts (including the token “diet club” run by the same supermarket!) of teaching people better and healthier lifestyle in terms of food quality and consumption.

After said email, my supermarket has, again, made it to the list of my less-favourite people.  And I hate feeling disappointed in businesses I had, against all odds, actually learned to respect and like.

So, in short, after resisting a strong urge to throw the nearest shoe into the nearest wall, I resort to this:  the electronic equivalent of public screaming and shoe-throwing – in the hopes that perhaps writing this and making people aware of the insidious dangers of the supermarket and advertisement jungle, I might undo at least a little bit of the harm emails like the one I’ve received (sent out to millions of consumers, I am sure!) are doing day in and day out.

Bar and Shake Diets : Opinion

In a recent post I have discussed what amounts to a diet-specific chocolate bar, and mentioned in the same breath that I do not approve of bar and shake (meal replacement) diets as a long-term solution to weight loss.

Allow me to first say, that I neither think that everyone should be size 0 and starved like catwalk models, nor advocate weight loss beyond what is reasonable.  I won’t go into a debate on what is reasonable – for that, if you are unsure yourself, ask your physician.  While those overweight know it, some people who aren’t actually in need of weight loss quite frequently still think they are, and this is a topic for an altogether different discussion.

The reasons for my disapproval of bar-and-shake (meal replacement) diets are several, but first let me point out that I don’t think those bars and shakes are bad or unhealthy.  Most of them aren’t, actually – and do make a good meal on the go, especially the vitamin-enriched ones.  I would also say that if it is a case of short-term weight loss with a close goal (such as losing half a dress size to look better in that bikini for a holiday or in that formal gown at a special event), they would do all right as well.  I may question people’s thinking when they go for programs that result in quick short-term weight loss, as the results of those usually revert quite quickly, sometimes with said people gaining more weight back than was originally lost, but – for what they are, i. e. short-term weight loss, they do work.

What they, in my opinion, do not do, is promote long-term weight loss, the thing that most people going into weight-loss regimes really want – losing the weight and keeping it off.  And that, in itself, is not the bars or shakes’ fault, either.  It is the failures of the human factor that lead to the weight gain originally (some with or without extenuating circumstances), and it is the same failures that cause it to revert after losing it short-term with meal replacements.

Let’s face it – leaving aside the few medical cases where weight gain is caused by medication, thyroid disorders, and the like, most people who are overweight, are overweight, frankly, because of what and how much they put in their mouths (and somewhat less but also affected by their level of physical activity).   Note that I put “what” before “how much” – I will elaborate. This is not a politically correct thing to say, but – using one’s common sense – it is what it is.  I will not go deep into discussion of the food industry, the advertisement industry, the Western food culture’s failings in terms of obesity and related disease epidemic sweeping the Westernised countries – another time about that.  However, the common denominator between all of that is still the people who eat it.  And while I do not pass judgement on why they eat what they eat or how much they eat, it is hopefully clear that the fact that they do is the root of the problem.

Which brings me back to meal-replacement plans and the reason why, despite thinking they aren’t bad for your health, and certainly do work in short-term, I do not want to recommend them to anybody planning to lose weight for good.  You see, we have to allow for the human factor in the equation, that is – people’s poor eating habit and lifestyle: bowl of sugary cereal for breakfast, quick bag of crisps with a can of coke at lunch, candy bar during afternoon slump, dessert (“pudding” as the locals call it) every evening.  If we swap a lot of that for lower-calorie/sugar and likely nutritionally denser weight loss meal replacements, it certainly will improve the food quality intake for a lot of people, which is why weight would be lost in short term.  But… and there is, sadly, more than one “but” here (not to be punny!) – there are several problems with keeping this up.

• Meal replacements tend to be rather costly compared to normal food, especially raw food ingredients.  As a result, it is difficult (unless you make rather excessive food budgeting even compared to myself – and I do spend a lot of money on food, due to refusal to save money on my health) to afford comfortably in the long run.
• Meal replacements, for all there is a small variety of flavours available, tend to bore people after a while.  Precisely because there are only so many things you can flavour them with, and most people do like variety.  That, and they never really taste as good as the “real” thing – and this is where the real problem lies.
• Meal replacement bars and shakes simulate “treats”, things which, unless they are specifically made low-calorie as part of a meal replacement plan, tend to be highly calorific:  sugar-filled cereal bars (I am not a fan of those!), chocolate candy bars, and milkshakes.  Therefore, while effecting some weight loss, these do not actually teach the human factor to eat differently from their bad lifestyle which had contributed to the gain of weight in the first place.

It is the last factor which is obviously the most important one.  Short of (invasive and painful) surgery, true and lasting weight loss and healthy weight maintenance can only be achieved by changing lifestyle and eating habits, which is precisely what this approach does not do.  It does not teach one to not snack between meals.  It does not teach one what to eat (in terms of fresh, real food) in order to not gain weight.  It does not teach one about the amazing variety of really delicious healhty foods available out there, and it does not teach anything about portion control of actual food, either.

And, as a result it allows people to drop dress sizes (at times quickly), but only briefly, as the moment they revert to their previous habits, not having acquired any new healthier ones, so does the weight.   Without proper weight maintenance habits (such as learning that sweets for dessert are not a part of normal daily routine for anyone who does not want to be blimpy), and awareness of one’s body and the importance of what you put into it, neither weight management, nor health improvement is achievable.

To quote a line off a fresh salad carton I once saw, “Crisps and sweets are not treats.  Eat them at your own peril.“

It Doesn’t Have To Smell Fishy!

The thought to mention this has occurred to me last weekend, when two of my friends were visiting and I was preparing a king prawn fried rice for dinner.  Marty had offered to help while I ran madly back and forth along my workspace, and I offhandedly told him to take the bottle of mirin off the counter, and drench the prawns in their bowl with it while I finished the rest of the prep.

Not two minutes later, I told him to dump the prawns into a colander to drain the mirin off them, and he, curious about the short time those spent in the sake, wondered what had been the point of it (clearly not marinating).  And so it occurred to me, that despite having used the technique, I have never heard mention of it either in cooking shows, from people other than the one who taught it to me (thanks, Kae!), nor in any cookbooks I’ve read (or at least I have not noticed it in them if it was there).  That’s not to say it is totally unknown (apparently the wikipedia page I linked does mention it!), but it is not well enough known to the general public for my taste, so – here it is.

The reason, and subsequent piece of advice, is simple.  Seafood and fish can sometimes have a “fishy” smell, even if they are rather fresh (though less pronounced when the seafood is very fresh, the hint of odour can still be there).  A lot of people cannot stand this odour, and thus avoid seafood (which is not only good for you, but is also a fantastic thing to eat!), and they do not have to.  A simple, short rinse in mirin (or any similar type of alcohol), or dry white wine (if you do not like the flavour of mirin), completely neutralises and removes the unpleasant smell, without affecting the flavour of seafood significantly (and not at all in any negative way).  If none of the wine/mirin flavour is desired in the dish, the seafood can be subsequently lightly rinsed in cold water (something I never personally have done myself).  Similarly, if making a seafood soup or stew, addition of a small amount of white wine (half a cup or so) to the soup pot has the same effect.

So, if you like the idea of eating things which swim (or sit around underwater in their shells, or whatever) instead of walking the earth, but don’t like the “fishy” smell, give them a boozy bath before cooking.  The difference it makes is really amazing!

NOTE: about using mirin – it does have a lot of sugar in it, which makes me treat it very carefully (my opinions of sugar as food are less than flattering).  However, if you are concerned about sugar (and are sugar sensitive, diabetic or have a hypoglycemic tendency), white wine of most non-sweet varieties, or dry sake can substitute just as well if not better for this purpose.