This famous book among chefs from all over the world, which gives you the answers to almost all questions about food and its reaction to different culinary processes, could not leave chocolate aside.
Chocolate could not be left out of this important work destined for the most curious of the culinary art.
Harold McGee, author of La Cocina y los Alimentos, Encyclopedia of the science and culture of food, dedicated a chapter on chocolate in his more than 800 pages of his book, in which he explains what types of chocolate there are, how to work with it the kitchen, even its history and how it is prepared.
Here is a summary of what the MacGee Food Bible says about chocolate:
Table of Contents
about chocolate
- Chocolate is made from the astringent, bitter and tasteless seeds of the fruit of the cacao tree.
- It is one of the few foods whose potential was known in the industrial revolution
- A chocolate made from poorly fermented seeds can have notes of rubber, smoke, cured pork, fish, mold, cardboard, and rancidity.
- Among the types of chocolate that exist are the cheaper, the fine, the black, with milk, to cover and the white
- Chocolate does not represent any health risk and, on the contrary, can be beneficial
- Chocolate does not contain substances capable of inducing true addiction
- White chocolate is a chocolate without chocolate, it does not contain cocoa particles, therefore it has little or no chocolate flavor
His story
- The history of chocolate begins with the arrival in America by European settlers
- The first to cultivate this plant were the Olmecs, originally from the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
- The seeds were so valuable to the Aztecs that they used it as a form of currency.
- The first Europeans who saw the cocoa seed were the crew members of Columbus' fourth voyage, in 1502, who brought some to Spain
- The Mayans and Aztecs flavored their chocolate drinks with aromatic flowers, vanilla, chilli, wild honey and achiote
- Europeans began to add sugar, cinnamon, cloves, anise, almonds, hazelnuts, vanilla, rose water and musk to their chocolate drinks.
- The first European factories where chocolate pastes with spices were made were built in Spain in 1580. After 70 years, this food was introduced in Italy, France and England
- At the end of the XNUMXth century, chocolate shops proliferated in London, places where they began to add milk to hot chocolate
how it was consumed
- For two centuries in Europe chocolate was known only as a drink
- In XNUMXth century cookbooks, chocolate was used to prepare dragées, marzipan, cookies, creams, ice creams, mousses.
- In XNUMXth-century France, chocolate was sold in tablet form, half cocoa, half sugar, flavored with vanilla and cinnamon, and was considered an impromptu breakfast
- The first solid chocolate was presented by the firm fry and sons in 1847.
- In 1876 the Swiss confectioner Daniel Peter made the first solid milk chocolate.
In the kitchen
- The best temperature to store chocolate is a constant 15 to 18 degrees Celsius
- Chocolate can be melted over direct heat, a double boiler or in the microwave oven
- Modeled chocolate, used for decoration, is a mixture of melted chocolate with corn syrup and sugar
- To work with tempered chocolate, it must maintain a temperature between 31 and 32 degrees Celsius and to shape it, it must be poured into molds or over fillings that are not too cold or too hot.
- Milk and white chocolates are less resistant than black to work with in confectionery because they contain more milk solids than cocoa solids.
- Natural cocoa powder has a strong chocolate flavor and high astringency and bitterness.
- Covering chocolate is dark or milk chocolate formulated to flow well when melted. These should be 31-38% fat
