Spanish Drinking Chocolat- Part 2

I bought some Venezuelan chocolate the other day. It is a nice 71% dark chocolate. I wanted to start playing with the spice blend, refine it before River War. After more research into what spices the Spanish were playing with in the 16th century, I am introducing some a new player to the party, and removing some others.

Spain was really into pepper. During his travels in the Caribbean, Columbus stumbled across this round, black spice that he called “pimienta”. Columbus thought he found a new source of pepper. Instead he found Allspice. This member of the Myrtle family, found its way to Spanish cuisine by mistake. When ground, this spice tastes like a combination of cloves, juniper, cinnamon, and pepper, hence its modern name, Allspice.

Spice mix- ingredients are in whole form

1 cinnamon stick 3″

4 cloves

4 allspice berries

1 pinch of mace blades

5-7 peppercorns

Grind fine. This will make about 2 table spoons.

Chocolate recipe

1 cup of water

4 oz high quality dark chocolate- broken into pieces

3 tbl of white sugar

1-2 tlb of spice mix

1/2 vanilla bean- scraped

1. Boil water and turn off heat
2. Add chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes
3. Add sugar, spices, and vanilla. When adding the spices, start with 1 table spoon of the mixture first, add more if you want a spicier mix. 2 tablespoons will give you a very spicy chocolate
4. Froth. The spanish frothed their chocolate to get a head of foam. Traditionally a molinillo was used to froth. In the essence of time and/or lack of a molinillo, you can use a whisk (takes a bunch of time) or I used an immersion blender for 3 minutes on high.
5. Serve hot in 2 oz portions.

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