It's not surprising that I've gotten excited about wine while living in France. It's everywhere. Anytime. Anywhere. The best part is that you can get a very decent bottle without breaking the bank. In fact, in France a mineral water or fruit juice can cost you more than a decent Cote du Rhone.
One of my new favorite things to learn about is food and wine pairing. I plan to tell you more about a fantastic pairing session I attended recently, as well as the course on French wines I took at Le Cordon Bleu, but first I'd like to tell you about pairing wine with chocolate.
Chocolate and Maury wine. Maury wine (from the Languedoc region of France) resembles Port wine, except it's a bit less sweet. Therefore, making it the perfect match for a fine chocolate of the dark variety (at least 70%). It's as though the bittersweet cocoa is asking to be finished off with the sweet tartness of the Maury.
You know how sometimes you have a sip of red wine left after you finish your main course, and when you take a sip of the wine with your dessert, it creates a disgusting bitterness in your mouth? Well, Maury allows for the opposite; a delectable sweetness without the possible cloying sugar fest of a Port. Try this Maury - MA Amiel (the 15-year is best, but this 2008 vintage was very nice).
As long as we're on the subject of chocolate, this week I tempered dark chocolate and filled it with my own caramel. It was a total success! Not a streak in sight, nor a fingerprint to speak of.
The caramel is made by making syrup from glucose and sugar, waiting until the perfect color and pouring butter on it to stop the cooking process. In a second sauce pan, bring whipping cream, vanilla, and sugar to a boil and add to the caramel/butter. Let the caramel rest in a cool area or the refrigerator, and bingo - the best caramel you'll ever have.
The chocolate tempering is another matter all together, and it's a long, painful process that I've told you about before, and will be sure to tell you more about since I'm about to embark on a chocolate-tempering extravaganza. We have two exams in superior pastry at LCB - one is tempering chocolate and making a chocolate sculpture, and the other is sugar-pulling for six hours. More on this later...if the burns on my fingers are not bad enough to prevent me from typing on this keyboard, that is.
One of my new favorite things to learn about is food and wine pairing. I plan to tell you more about a fantastic pairing session I attended recently, as well as the course on French wines I took at Le Cordon Bleu, but first I'd like to tell you about pairing wine with chocolate.
You know how sometimes you have a sip of red wine left after you finish your main course, and when you take a sip of the wine with your dessert, it creates a disgusting bitterness in your mouth? Well, Maury allows for the opposite; a delectable sweetness without the possible cloying sugar fest of a Port. Try this Maury - MA Amiel (the 15-year is best, but this 2008 vintage was very nice).
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| fantastic Valrhona chocolate - 70% or 85%. my pastry chef says it's the best, and i agree |
The caramel is made by making syrup from glucose and sugar, waiting until the perfect color and pouring butter on it to stop the cooking process. In a second sauce pan, bring whipping cream, vanilla, and sugar to a boil and add to the caramel/butter. Let the caramel rest in a cool area or the refrigerator, and bingo - the best caramel you'll ever have.
The chocolate tempering is another matter all together, and it's a long, painful process that I've told you about before, and will be sure to tell you more about since I'm about to embark on a chocolate-tempering extravaganza. We have two exams in superior pastry at LCB - one is tempering chocolate and making a chocolate sculpture, and the other is sugar-pulling for six hours. More on this later...if the burns on my fingers are not bad enough to prevent me from typing on this keyboard, that is.
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| my chocolates filled with caramel |
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| this took me 2.5 hours, so i have a new-found respect for chocolatiers |
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