BN Cuisine: The Chocolate & Pawpaw Romance

Salut Fam!

In the midst of all this election/campaign drama, man must whack and whack well. For this week I decided to show how we can gourmet things up easily and not break the bank. The way to go would be dessert!

Chocolate is probably the most classic form of dessert or sweet. From regular candy bars to decadent chocolate cakes we tend to devour at celebratory times.

Today I wanted to show how you can make a simple chocolate mousse, while using a cheap fruit like pawpaw to make a nice sauce and make an elegant looking dessert.

You need a few things for this dessert.
Good quality chocolate
Nice white plates.
Copy some chef flair and plan an event to show off to your friends and family

A chocolate mousse should be light as air, but smooth… and just a spoonfuls of chocolate heaven. Chocolate works with so many other flavours like tart berries, citrus like orange, coconut and nuts. I decided to make a quick coulis (a reduced fruit sauce made by cooking in some sugar and blending and cooking down till thick and supple) from pawpaw which is very accessible. We can use very simple ingredients to make a statement at your next dinner party.

You can make the mousses and stick in the fridge or freezer a day before. Make your coulis and fruit salad and you’re good to go!

What You Need {serves 4}
100g 70% Dark chocolate broken up in to small pieces
I used 1 egg yolk
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup whipping/heavy/double cream
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (regular sugar is fine)
1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

Pawpaw coulis
100g- 150g red soft pawpaw roughly chopped (if you use the crunchy stuff you’ll need to add more sugar)
1 1/2 tablespoon sugar
Water to cover
1 teaspoon lime or lemon juice

Garnish
Whatever you fruit you have really
I recommend a few strawberries, diced up pawpaw and mint leaves for a green touch.
1 tablespoon Icing sugar
Extra chocolate for grating over

How To
Fill a pot quarter way full and set to boil. In a heat proof bowl, (You can use another pot that fits over it, a stainless steel bowl or Pyrex type bowl) place the chocolate in the bowl with half of the cream and place over the boiling water and allow only the steam to do the melting don’t allow the bottom of the chocolate bowl touch the water directly.

Once you see the chocolate melting slowly, with a spatula move the chocolate around and once melted totally take off the heat and add the sugar and honey and stir.

Add the rest of the cream and stir in.

Add the egg yolk in a stir in as well. Leave to once side to cool.

In a clean dry bowl (preferably stainless steel bowl), whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt still it doubles in size, stiff and forms soft peaks. When you turn it upside down it shouldn’t fall or move.

Make sure your chocolate mixture is very cool then fold in the egg whites. Put in half of the egg whites stir it in. Then the other half gently coax it into the chocolate mixture.

Pour into glasses, ramekins or one big plastic container so you can scoop like ice-cream afterwards.

Place in the fridge for a minimum of four hours or overnight. But with Niegrian light and the way we open the fridge you may want to use the freezer option. and leave in there for lees time maybe two hours.

The Coulis

Very simply, place all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook till the sugar starts to lightly colour and it’s a little bubbly. Take off the heat and puree to a smooth consistency in a blender.

To serve, toss some chopped fruits in some of the coulis with a dash of extra lime or neon juice for a tangy note and arrange any way you like on the plate.

I spooned some mouse into a small ramekin for a fine dining look and a smear of the coulis went on the plate for you to pick up and eat with the mousse.

If serving in a glass, you could pipe some whipped cream and garnish with the fruit salad and coulis for another approach. I couldn’t do that, because I honestly forgot to shoot it and it was so yummy we ate it all!

Many thanks to my assistant of life Seun Kowosi for being awesome through the making of this!

Be sure to try this as some point for the boo okay? If boo-less then… na you and your best show and Jesus will be with you till he or she comes.

Before I go something exciting is happening at Chef Fregz this Valentines (whether election dry or not love must be shown o!)

All I can say for now is that it is going to be sweet! Want to stay in the loop? Send us an email info(at)cheffregz(dot)com to find out! Also follow us on Instagram, twitter @chef_fregz and Facebook Chef Fregz for the news.

Have a greet weekend!

A bientôt