100% Pure

It was a few months ago now since I first saw Willie Harcourt-Cooze on TV espousing the virtues of real chocolate. Willie is an eccentric entrepreneur from Devon whose aim is to produce the worlds finest chocolate, by hand, from bean to bar.

At the age of just 27 Willie went to Venezuela and bought a 1000 acre farm -as you do- and planted it with 50,000 Criollo Cacao trees, widely regarded as being the best and highest quality strain of cocoa.

A bar of Venezuelan black 100% cacao

Back in the UK Willie set up his factory and began to produce his first bars under the name Venezualan Black. This is chocolate but not as you know it, the bars are made from 100% pure Cacao, they are not at all sweet and are not meant for eating raw. This chocolate is meant to be used as an ingredient, just like you would use garlic or salt and pepper. In fact Willie puts his cacao into just about everything from pasta and chilli to cakes and desserts.

I finally got hold of some of his cacao a few days ago, the bar I bought was described as having "tingly notes of nut and spice" which makes it sound almost like a bottle of wine.

I plumped for a pot of chilli as my first dish to get the cacao treatment, chocolate is a common ingredient in chilli -i'm sure you knew that- so it seemed like a good place to start. I just used my normal chilli recipe but just before serving I added a handful of grated cacao. The effect was quite astounding, the chilli became deeper, darker and richer and gave a complex and interesting flavour.

Chocolate chilli tacos with sour cream and cheese

I'm definitely a cacao convert just a small amount can make a massive improvement to a dish like chilli. The downside is that at £6 a bar this stuff is not cheap for now it will have to remain an ingredient for special occasions.

Willies official website can be found here: http://www.williescacao.com/

Obama's chili

Not only is Barack Obama the President and a great politician, but it seems as if he can cook too, At least he can if his chili recipe is anything to go by.

I found this recipe over at Hopies Kitchen and was intrigued to find out just how good Obama's cooking is. The chili contains a couple of unexpected ingredients, turmeric, basil and red wine vinegar, I've never seen these in a chili recipe before but they didn't seem out of place in the finished dish, in fact they were a nice addition that I will use again.
I followed the recipe pretty closely the only changes being that I doubled the spices and herbs to add more flavour and I used an extra pepper. I also used black beans instead of kidney beans simply because that's what I had.

Recipe (Original from ABC News)

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• Several cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound ground turkey or beef
• 1/4 teaspoon (each) of ground cumin, ground oregano, ground turmeric, and ground basil
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• Several tomatoes, depending on size, chopped
• 1 can red kidney beans

Method:

• Sauté onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil until soft.
• Add ground meat and brown.
• Combine spices together into a mixture, then add to ground meat.
• Add red wine vinegar.
• Add tomatoes and let simmer, until tomatoes cook down.
• Add kidney beans and cook for a few more minutes.
• Serve over white or brown rice. Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream.

I thought the finished dish was really tasty and well flavoured and well balanced, I'll certainly be making it again although next time I will add more vegetables.