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Vegetarian Recipes: Chocolate Sauce

Flesh-eaters have the gravy of meat to eat with their vegetables, and when they give up the use of flesh they are often at a loss for a good substitute. Sauces may be useful in more ways than one. When not too highly spiced or seasoned they help to prevent thirst, as they supply the system with fluid, and when made with the liquor in which vegetables have been boiled they retain many valuable salts which would otherwise have been lost. When foods are eaten in a natural condition no sauces are required, but when food is changed by cooking many persons require it to be made more appetising, as it is called. The use of sauces is thus seen to be an aid to help down plain and wholesome food, and being fluid they cause the food to be more thoroughly broken up and made into a porridgy mass before it is swallowed. From a health point of view artificial sauces are not good, but if made as I direct very little harm will result.

A Decadent Treat

The first step to making your own chocolate from scratch is roasting the cocoa beans. Roasting cocoa beans is pretty much like roasting coffee beans, only with some more specific requirements. You have the option of either roasting the beans in your own oven or use a coffee bean roaster Roasting the beans first not only gets rid of the contaminants that could be on raw cocoa beans, but most importantly, it brings out the flavor that everyone is familiar with. ItтЂ™ll take anywhere from 5 to 35 minutes at 250 тЂ“ 350 degrees F. Start roasting the beans at a high temperature, and then gradually bring it down. When the beans start to crack, youтЂ™ll know the process is complete. The second step is the crack the beans into small nibs, while removing the husks by hand. If you did a good job of roasting the beans, the husks should be very easy to remove. You can speed up the process by stirring the nibs with your hands while blowing the husks away with a hair dryer. If you find yourself working with a large batch of beans, a special purpose-grinding mill can be bought for around $100. The next step is to grind up the nibs and turn them into a cocoa liquid. To do this, hand-feed the nibs one handful at a time into a food processor or an electric cocoa grinder. A mix of cocoa liquid and husks will come of out the spout, so keep repeating the process until only the husks come out. The biggest challenge is finding a food processor that is powerful enough to do this, as most ordinary juicers, coffee grinders and food processors wonтЂ™t be able to handle liquefying the nibs. Now youтЂ™ll have to conch and refine your chocolate. This is a process that affects the taste, texture and smell of your chocolate. Normally, these processes have to be done separately, but both can be done at the same time with a good wet grinder. The way youтЂ™ll conch and refine largely depends on the type of equipment you use. After this, youтЂ™ll have to тЂњtemperтЂќ the chocolate, so that itтЂ™ll gain a shine and be hard enough not to melt in your hand. You can do this by hand or with a special tempering machine for larger quantities. All you have to do is to spread the melted chocolate out on a hard, non-porous kitchen top and bring it back together until the chocolate cools down to a thick and gooey mess. Do this as many times as needed until the chocolate comes to a shine. All that is left to be done is to pour the chocolate into any mold and cool it down. Then itтЂ™s тЂњbon appetiteтЂќ! Making chocolate from scratch is a learning process; so if this is your first time, donтЂ™t expect that very first batch to be perfect. In the long run, practice makes perfect and youтЂ™ll even end up adding your own twist chocolate making by adding ingredients of your own or using different techniques. For more information on chocolate, visit http://www.howtomakechocolate.net.

Using Smoked Food in Recipes

Tired of the same old meal? Try using smoked food in recipes! Imagine sitting down to dinner and having a delicious smell waft through the air. More importantly, imagine the succulent taste of that delicious meal! If you are wondering how you can spice up your next meal by using smoked food in recipes, read onтЂ¦.