Tsokolate

Thick drinking chocolate from pure cacao tablets, whisked until it foams on top.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

• 6 tablea discs, about 120 g
• 200 ml water
• 600 ml whole milk
• 60 g dark muscovado sugar
• 0.25 teaspoon salt
• 1 pinch ground cinnamon

Method

1. MELT THE TABLEA IN WATER FIRST, never straight into milk. Tablea is pure ground cacao with nothing added, and it needs water to break down -- dropped into milk it sits in lumps that no amount of whisking will take out.
2. Chop or crumble the discs. Whole, they take twice as long and the bottom scorches while the top is still solid.
3. Water and tablea in a small pan over a low heat, whisking, 4 to 5 minutes, until you have a smooth dark paste with no grit on the spoon.
4. Sugar and salt in, 1 minute. The salt is not optional -- without it pure cacao reads as flat and chalky.
5. Milk in a little at a time, whisking after each addition. All at once, the paste seizes and you are back to lumps.
6. Bring it to just below a simmer, 5 minutes, stirring. It must not boil: boiled, the fat separates and floats as slicks on the surface.
7. NOW WHISK IT HARD for a full minute, off the heat, with a whisk held upright between the palms or a batirol spun between them. This is what makes it thick and raises the foam, and it is the step people leave out and then wonder why theirs is thin.
8. Pour from a height into small cups so the foam holds. Cinnamon over the top.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes