White Hot Chocolate with Cardamom and Nutmeg

fritters

Two weeks, 30 meals*, and nearly 1,000 photos later, we've returned from Southeast Asia. It's nice to be back in our own home, in our fair city (which compared to the Maryland suburbs has too much pollution but compared to Vietnam smells like I imagine Little House on the Prairie did). But still: even with all of our creature comforts, I find myself really missing Thailand in particular. Both Chiang Mai and Bangkok had so much to offer in terms of food, culture, and cheap massages. I wish we'd had more time.

grilled bananas

ping lake

I'm currently going through all of my photos from the trip, and over the next couple weeks, I'll post some of my favorite images and tell you a few good stories (let's face it - they're mostly about amazing meals). For now, I'm gradually relearning my way around a kitchen, reminding myself that oh, I really do love to cook. The muscles are soft from lack of use; it'll be a while before that kitchen feels like home again.

Also, it is cold here. I left DC when it was maybe 60 degrees, and went to two countries where seasonal attire in December is shorts and a t-shirt, with a jacket for nighttime if you're lucky. I return to freezing temperatures and wind? Dislike. As if on cue, our HVAC sputtered yesterday. Around here, we're getting professional at wrapping the blankets around our bodies just so.

Fortunately, we've got hot chocolate. Before I left, I was getting really into an only-slightly-indulgent routine of having hot chocolate in the evenings. I'd been riffing on my usual recipe, adding mexican cinnamon and smoked chile, or a dollop of salted caramel. When you're starting with good hot chocolate, It's hard to go wrong.

We returned to an empty fridge, though -- and in the shonde of all shondes, we also were out of chocolate. Unfazed, I started poking around online looking for non-chocolate milk-based drinks. Pretty quickly, I landed on a page from Saveur that promised thick, spiced white hot chocolate.

white chocolate chopped

I can already hear the rumblings from the "white chocolate isn't chocolate" camp. Alright! No fights there: I cede your point. But white chocolate is good in its own right. (It's especially good if you coax it to look more and more like its distant relative.) And when stirred into hot milk spiced with fresh cardamom, it makes a superb drink.

white hot chocolate with nutmeg

It's creamy, even without whipped cream, and it's rich but not overly so. The dusting of grated nutmeg, I think, is what takes it from sweet tasty drink to something special. This is supposed to be a pretty cold weekend - I'll be sipping on one of these. Okay, probably more than one.

white hot chocolate

*I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit that I ate several second breakfasts and a few second lunches. You only live once!

White Hot Chocolate with Cardamom and NutmegAdapted from Saveur

As I was writing this, I remembered these caramelized white chocolate rhubarb bars from earlier this year. They were damn good. I had a bit of extra white chocolate left over after testing this recipe, so I caramelized it - and then turned it into this hot chocolate. To get the obvious out of the way, it was delicious. But the cardamom came through less, and the drink needed a more generous dusting of nutmeg. If you're in the mood to caramelize, don't let me stop you - but this drink is best with pure, white chocolate. Go forth.

2 oz. good-quality white chocolate, finely chopped 1 cup milk 1/4 cup cream 4 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract Freshly grated nutmeg for garnish

Heat milk, cream, and cardamom over medium heat until bubbles start to form on the surface, about 3 minutes. Turn off heat, cover pot, and let milk steep for about 15 minutes.

Remove cardamom seeds, and reheat milk until bubbles again form around the edges. Stir in chocolate, and let sit for 1 minute. Stir in vanilla, pour into mugs, dust nutmeg overtop, and serve immediately.

Serious Cold Brew Coffee

I somehow tricked myself into thinking that DC wouldn't show its true colors this summer. We've been coasting on 75-degree days these past few weeks, toasting the end of the workday with glasses of Lillet on the deck. All along, I've wondered whether real DC summer weather -- think swampy, sticky, hot mayhem -- might just pass us by. Of course, that was silly. It's 7:30 am and already 92 degrees outside. We'll be hitting 100 today. The chard and lettuce are doing great on the deck, but if I went out there, I'd wilt.

That's why I'm sitting inside, in cutoffs and a tank, doing not much of anything. On days like this, there's nowhere else to be.

And then there's this coffee. This coffee, which requires not a single appliance, not even a second's worth of a lit stove. On days like today, it's a godsend.

Cold Brew Coffee 2

If what you're seeking is a cold beverage to take the edge off the heat, look no further. Below, you'll learn how to "brew" coffee in cold water overnight. The result has all the complexity of regular coffee, but with much less acidity, if any. It's smooth as a baby's bottom.

Cold Brew Coffee 3

But if you're a serious coffee drinker, the type who likes to be challenged by your morning beverage, well - I've got just the thing.

Salt.

Would you believe me if I told you I salted my coffee this morning? Not only did I skip the milk (I'm turning more and more into my grandmother every day), but I actually added a pinch of salt to this morning's cup. Dan Souza, over at Test Kitchen, is apparently the boss of cold brew coffee, and he told me to add salt, so I did. He didn't even explain why, but he told me to "just trust" him, and I did. And my coffee is pretty delicious.

I guess salting coffee is sort of like salting food. It awakens your palate to the flavor. Tomatoes taste much better with a pinch of salt, so it's no surprise that coffee does, too.

DSC_0514

So...am I converted? Not sure. I'm sure there's regular coffee with milk in my future. But this whole black coffee with salt feels pretty badass. And on a day like today, when my clothes stick to my skin and I can barely muster the energy to turn on the stove, feeling badass is a very good thing, indeed.

Serious Cold Brew CoffeeAdapted from Dan Souza at America's Test Kitchen

8 oz. coffee, ground fine 1 1/2 quarts room temperature water

Add water and coffee to a large pitcher (preferably one with a cover), and give a stir until the two are combined. You'll see some of the coffee immediately float to the top; stir this back into the water.

Now, cover the pitcher and leave it alone. No more stirring. Let the mixture sit on the counter for 24 hours.

Put a coffee filter in a strainer or funnel, and set over the container in which you plan to store the coffee. (If you want to store it in the same pitcher in which you steeped it, just strain the coffee into a bowl, and then pour it back into the pitcher once you've cleaned it.)

Pour the coffee concentrate through the filter slowly; it may take a while to drain. Store the filtered concentrate in the fridge until you need it.

To drink, pour equal amounts concentrate and water into a glass with plenty of ice. Add a pinch of salt, stir to combine, and drink up.

Perfect Chai

The leaves are falling, yellow and burnt orange, into oddly balmy air. It's not nearly as cold as "late November" suggests it should be. No scarf or hat for me - not even a real winter coat yet. Just a blazer, some low boots, and a hankering for the real chill to set in.

We spent thanksgiving in Michigan, where I was certain we'd have some seasonally appropriate weather. But folks, even Detroit was definitively mild. Aside from plenty of rain, the Michigan air barely even could be called brisk.

So yes, I'm impatient for real, honest fall. I'm sure I'll laugh bitterly if I chance to reread this post in February, but for now, I'm ready for real fall. In the meantime, I'm cheating the seasons a bit: well ahead of the weather's lazy schedule, I've busted out the tea leaves. Folks, I'm making chai.

The title of this post is a bit misleading, really. Chai recipes abound, and none is the universal favorite. Everyone makes chai a bit differently. I've long been a fan of Tazo. Theirs is a thick, strong chai, spicy from cloves and anise and black pepper. For many winters, I've been tucking my coffee grinder, beans, and filter into the throughs of my cabinet and turning to the Tazo tea leaves bags for my morning beverage.

But every once in a while, on weekend days during the colder months, I pull out my loose tea and my spices, and concoct my own chai tea. When I'm brewing from scratch, this here is my ideal recipe. It's got plenty of cardamom, which (I think) is the only ingredient other than tea in traditional chai. But it's also got cloves, which add an undercurrent of spice to the drink. If you're feeling you need that extra spice punch, you could add some black pepper, too - but when I'm making it from scratch, I keep things pretty mellow.

chai ingredients

Traditional chai is made with a majority milk. I can't handle that much dairy every morning, so I stick to a ratio of 50% water, 50% milk. Adjust the ratio according to your own tastes.

And like I said, finding your perfect chai is a matter of trial and error. Use this as your starting point. Hey - maybe you'll like it just as I do.

Hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday. Onward to December!

perfect chai 2

This recipe has two variations. First comes weekend chai, when Chopin is on in the background and you don't mind dirtying a couple pots. Second is workday chai. One pot, five minutes, and it's in the mug. -R

Perfect ChaiServes 2

2 cups water 2 cups milk 1 1/2 tablespoons strong black tea (preferably Assam) Seeds from two green cardamom pods 1 clove 1 tablespoon honey

Grind clove and cardamom together in spice grinder (or crush with mortar and pestle).

In a small saucepan, heat milk until steamy but not boiling. Remove from heat. Add cardamom and clove, stir to combine, and cover.

In a medium saucepan, heat water and tea until boiling. You can do this either by putting the tea leaves directly into the water, or by putting them in a floating tea infuser like this one, or this one, both of which I own and love.

Boil the tea in the water for about 1 minute, then either strain or remove tea infuser. Add infused milk and honey, stir to combine, pour into 2 mugs, and serve immediately.

Weekday chai:

In a small saucepan, combine tea, water, and ground cardamom and clove. (if using a tea infuser, do not out spices in infuser - add them directly to the water.) Bring to a boil over high heat. Cook for about 1 minute, then add milk. Continue cooking for another 1-2 minutes until the mixture is steaming hot. Strain tea or remove infuser, pour into your mug, and get thee to the office, stat.

The Negroni

I rarely post about drinks in this space. Truth is, until recently I hadn't a clue how to mix a good drink. My bar was "stocked" with two bottles of Kahlua, a half-empty jug of Bailey's, and the brandy and sherry I use in cooking. For a nice, hard drink, I went around the corner and plopped my derriere at a bar. So it was.

I'm pretty sure it was Jen, from Last Night's Dinner, who, in a sort of roundabout way, kickstarted my newfound intrigue in liquor and the cool things you can do with it. (I sound a little bit like I just had my 21st birthday, I know.) It's ironic, since Jen's husband, Mike, is the real drink expert. He blogs at A Dash of Bitters and writes a drink column for Serious Eats Drinks. But it was Jen who got me started. Earlier this year, Jen posted a recipe on Food52 for linguine with sardines, tomato, and fennel. That dish became one of my addictions this past winter, and I made it probably once a week. It's a beautiful recipe, in which long pasta meets melted fennel, bright tomato, briny sardines, toasted bread crumbs, and...dry vermouth.

Vermouth, I came to learn, is a fortified wine. There's sweet vermouth and dry vermouth. I've come to think that in cooking, dry vermouth is to white wine what shallots are to onions: more complex, more buttery, more exciting. I still cook with plenty of white wine, but especially in savory dishes, I turn more and more to dry vermouth.

Then there's sweet vermouth, which has about half as sweet as port and, again, fortified with various herbs and spices. I've used it in chicken dishes to impart a gentle sweetness with plenty of flavor. The stuff is really, really good.

In my urban kitchen, where we're perpetually in negotiations about the necessity of every utensil or appliance, the vermouth functioned as a new toy. It was great in food, but I wondered about its potential in, of all places, the glass.

I started playing with vermouth-based cocktails, this and this. But I have both a terrible memory and a penchant for not following recipes so well, and when those two things combine, you've got yourself a terrible mixologist. So at the end of the day, I've come to favor a cocktail that's as easy to memorize as it is to quaff: the Negroni.

A Negroni is 1 part gin, 1 part Campari, and 1 part sweet vermouth. Let's discuss: gin, you know. Campari is an apertif, a liquor infused with herbs and spices, that's notable for its bright red color and its mysterious bitterness. It's great with just soda, but it's even better when it meets gin and sweet vermouth. The result is a sweet but bracing cocktail, perfect to serve your guests before dinner. If that dinner is, say, a 4th of July barbecue, all the better. Negronis will gear everyone up for burgers and cherry pie.

Other July 4th menu ideas:Not So Potato-y SaladSingapore SlawAsian Cabbage SaladCucumber Avocado SoupJam-Filled Hand PiesMint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

The Negroni

Now, if you're a drink expert, please don't freak out about the picture at the top of this post. Negronis should be served on the rocks, I know. But you see, our normal ice trays broke, leaving us only with the ice trays meant for water bottles, which produce long, skinny ice logs that sit very awkwardly in our cocktail glasses. Left with no choice, I stirred our Negronis on plenty of ice, but poured them off into our glasses without the frozen, so we wouldn't be whacked by ice logs while sipping our drinks. So be it.

Serves 2

2 oz. gin (I used Plymouth - no need to use Hendricks or anything too fancy here) 2 oz. Campari 2 oz. sweet vermouth ice cubes

Combine ingredients in an old fashioned glass. Stir, and serve.