Chocolate Chorizo and Watermelon

Yesterday I spent the day with a watermelon. Or rather with my friend Coralie who is expecting a baby any day now and is ready to burst 😉  To keep her mind off of the fact that gravity was taking its toll and making her terribly heavy, we spent the afternoon in my kitchen making a fun and tasty recipe for adventurous chocoholics.
Based on Madalene’s original Chocolate Salami recipe on The British Larder and on Helene’s Cocoa Salami adaptation on Super Kitchen Machine, my inspiration lead to Chocolate Chorizo. The original recipe lends itself to infinite adaptation and my further experimentation adds Sweet Sherry and smoky paprika to create a somewhat unusual, quite tasty but not-too-sweet treat which is a sure-fire conversation starter. It also makes a great gift for bringing to a dinner party, especially if you have an adventurous host or hostess!

Melting and cooking the chocolate mixture for this recipe in the Thermomix is not only easy but beautifully controlled thanks to the thermostatic temperature settings which yield a perfectly smooth, glossy preparation. Professional chocolatiers rely on Thermomix every day to produce perfect, consistent ganaches and to temper their chocolates.

Madame Thermomix’s Chocolate Chorizo

Ingredients

200 g. digestive biscuits
160 g. nuts (your choice and combination of pistachios, flaked almonds, slivered almonds, whole almonds, cashews, hazelnuts)
80 g. dried cranberries and/or candied ginger
100 g. icing sugar
60 g. unsalted butter
20g. chilli oil
200 g. bitter chocolate (70% cocoa solids; we used Marks & Spencer Dark Chocolate with Peruvian Cocoa… yum!)
80 g. condensed milk
2 egg yolks
80-90 g. Sweet sherry
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp red food colouring (food colouring is optional but gives great results)
1 Tbsp yellow food colouring
cocoa powder, smoked paprika and icing sugar for dusting 

Method

1. Break biscuits into tiny pieces — as small as you can get them without turning them into crumbs. (This is best done by hand as any machine or crushing action will quickly result in a useless powder.)
2. Prepare nuts by shelling pistachios and chopping larger nuts into smaller pieces. Almond flakes and slivered almonds are fine as they are. If using whole almonds, hazelnuts or cashews, Helene recommends chopping them in the Thermomix for 1-2 seconds at speed 4. Anything more than that will make them into fine crumbs, which is not the result you’re looking for.
3. Add nuts and dried cranberries to biscuit pieces.

1. To measure the sherry, place the lid on your Thermomix and place a glass on top. Press the built-in weighing scales button to tare the scales to zero, then pour the sherry into the glass until the scales read 80g. Drizzle half the sweet sherry over your dry ingredients, toss gently but thoroughly, and set aside.
2. Add chilli oil and butter to Thermomix bowl, melt 2 minutes/50°C/speed 2.
3. Coarsely chop the chocolate with a knife, add to butter and chilli oil mixture, and melt for 2 minutes/50°C/speed 2.
4. Add egg yolks, icing sugar, condensed milk, salt, the rest of the sherry, and the vanilla. Add the food colouring if using. Cook 6 minutes/50°C/speed 2.
5. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. This step is important as otherwise you will be trying to work with a warm gloopy chocolatey mess rather than a chilled yet malleable mass!
6. Add chocolate mixture to dry ingredients and mix well by hand in a large bowl. (Do not attempt to mix by Thermomix as this will over-process the ingredients.)

Forming the chorizo sausage

1. As in step 8 above, make sure you allow the chocolate mixture to cool for 10-15 minutes and it will be much easier to shape.
2. Lay two pieces of cling film on the counter and put 1/3 to 1/2 of the mixture on the plastic (I actually used a quarter of the mixture and made a total of 4 sausages).

1. Gently begin to roll and form the mix into a sausage shape.
2. As sausage begins to take shape, tie off one end of the plastic film.
3. A sushi mat is really helpful with rolling and gives a classic texture to the sausage shape.
4. Continue rolling and squeezing until you have the length and diameter of sausage you prefer.
5. Tie off the other end.
6. Roll and squeeze firmly for best effect.
7. When satisfied, transfer the plastic-wrapped bundle into the fridge.
8. Allow to set for 2-3 hours before dusting.

Coating/dusting the chorizo

1. Once set, snip the knots and remove plastic film.
2. Roll or powder (dust) your sausage in your choice of coatings. The original recipe recommends cocoa powder and to achieve the proper colouring for a chorizo I used a combination of cocoa powder, icing sugar, and paprika. You can dip the salami in the powdered coating and/or use a pastry brush to help with dusting. Helene’s preference is simply to sprinkle the powder on and rub it gently by hand to coat; I used a combination of sprinkling, rubbing and brushing! You’ll find your own technique for this.
3. Wrap the coated chorizo in parchment paper or butcher’s paper to enhance the effect when serving or giving as a gift. You can even tie it with string for a truly authentic look.

This chocolate chorizo with its smoky paprika and cocoa dusting turned out beautifully and was thoroughly enjoyed by my watermelon friend – oops! I mean the very pregnant Coralie – her husband Mathieu and by my husband John. It was very good with a hearty Spanish Rioja and also with a glass of the 12-year-old Pedro Jimenez Sweet Sherry that went into the mixture.

When we finished making our treat, we couldn’t resist comparing it to a Tesco’s Finest Saucisson Sec (a traditional French dried sausage) and to a high-quality cooking Chorizo. Can you spot our Chocolate Chorizo?

Special thanks to Coralie for taking these beautiful photos. You can see more of her photography and prose on her blog, Tea Time in Wonderland.

And more special thanks to Helene of Super Kitchen Machine for this brilliant “slideo” showing her brilliant technique for making this fun-tastic chocolate treat!

Be on the lookout for my new series of “One Bottle Meals” where I pair multi-course meals to specific wines. This Chocolate Chorizo will be one of the desserts!

Bon appétit !

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