This is galangal.

It is not the same as mandrake, the root that Ofelia, the protagonist in Pan’s Labyrinth, placed under her sick mother’s bed.

But it’s nearly as (more…)

The mission at Cook’s Illustrated is “to develop the absolute best recipes for all of your favorite foods.” Who can’t recall creamy chocolate pudding as a favorite food, if from a distant childhood past? The problem with those childhood versions, however, is that they lack the amount of dark chocolate oomph needed to appeal to our more sophisticated, adult palates.

After sourcing recipes spanning four decades, (more…)

On the Day of the Dead, or any day, I like Mexican drinking chocolate served chilled and “on tap,” with a head. Thus began frothing sessions with a molinillo, a whisk, and, (more…)

This drinking chocolate is inspired by the flavor and aroma of the famous Indian tea known as chai. There are various recipes for chai. The simplest style, like the recipe in the previous DCCC pick Entice with Spice, is made with black tea, milk, sugar and cardamom pods; more complex chai, using several spices, are called Masala Chai. (Masala means “spice” in Hindi.) Some masala chai have a licorice accent via fennel or anise seed—thus the addition here of Pernod, a licorice-flavored liqueur. (My bar is directly above my spice drawer, so it’s easy to get side-tracked.) (more…)

I’m passionate about drinking chocolate, so much so that I finagled a way to work it into the theme of Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club. For each DCCC cookbook pick, I will challenge myself to come up with a new drinking chocolate recipe inspired by the subject of the book. The first step, before spinning off into exotic riffs, is to give you my recipe for basic drinking chocolate, and an overview of my approach to making the drink, which can be modified to your taste.

I’ll try to brief, but I have a lot to say about drinking chocolate. It’s been my most constant source of pleasure in the kitchen for the last several years: I love the process of making it, experimenting with different sweeteners and flavorings, and drinking it, especially with my boyfriend, Mike. (If our relationship has a food theme, it’s drinking chocolate.)

(more…)