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/

Discovery Tequila and Lime Salsa: A review

Recently I was sent a jar of Discovery's new Tequila and Lime Salsa to try, the blurb on the back of the jar describes it as "Fiery Mexican salsa made with tomatoes, onions, jalapeño pepper, tequila and lime juice. No nasties just lots of zingy chunks" It certainly sounded good and a quick check of the ingredients revealed there were definitely no "nasties" and yes it did contain real tequila. So far so good.So what did I do with it? I'm sure this would be great as a dip or an accompaniment to almost any Mexican food, as usual though I had to do something a bit different!
I made my own "Mexican style" burgers by adding cumin, garlic and coriander to the burger mixture, I served them in burger buns with lettuce, tomatoes and Discovery's new salsa.The burgers were a great success with the family and everyone loved the salsa. They thought it "had just the right level of heat" was "fresh tasting" and looked good. Personally I was very impressed with this, I don't usually buy ready made food but I would buy this. I thought it tasted like it had just been made, it had a fresh, clean flavour which was a perfect partner to the burger.
The only downside to this product is that none of us could really taste the lime or the tequila which is a shame as it sounded like a nice twist on the usual salsa. I also wouldn't describe it as fiery, there is a very mild heat which was perfect for me, if you like hot food though you might find this a bit on the mild side.
As far as I am aware this is only available in the UK but if you like Mexican food and can get hold of this I would recommend it highly. Overall 4/5