White Chocolate + Olive Panini

I get on panini kicks now and then and usually make a plethora of different recipes at once. Maybe it is because it is such satisfying result for such few ingredients and little effort. People don’t commonly think to put chocolate between bread in this country or alongside savory ingredients; but, I promise that once you get started doing both, you won’t look back.

This week, stay tuned in as I take you through a panini flight from white to milk to dark chocolate. In chocolate tasting, like win sipping, we begin with the lighter flavors (white chocolate) before moving to the darker flavors so that your palate is not overwhelmed.

White chocolate often gets a bad rap. Many argue that it is not chocolate at all. I disagree! White chocolate is made from the cocoa butter that is derived from the cacao bean. The cocoa butter is separated from the dark cocoa solids and combined with sugar and milk to create white chocolate. It is usually quite sweet and very creamy. I usually combine white chocolate with something citrus-y, salty or with a floral note to offset the sweetness. The more delicate flavor of the white chocolate allows the softer citrus and floral notes to enjoy center stage.

In this panino, the sweet white chocolate marries well with the briney olives. Together with the cheese, the white chocolate will ooze between the crunchy bread spreading sweet delight with each savory bite. It is especially important to gather the best quality ingredients. Your white chocolate should be at least 30 % cocoa butter. Don’t use the fake stuff!

If you don’t have a panini press and don’t want to own another appliance, try this panini iron, which can be pressed on top of the sandwich while it cooks on a grill pan, or a good ol’ waffle iron works well too.

White Chocolate + Olive Panini

Makes 1 sandwich

2 slices rustic Italian bread or ciabatta about 2 inches in diameter
1 1/2 tablespoon first cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
a pinch Maldon sea salt
¼ ounce (7 grams) white chocolate
1 slice of Buffalo mozzarella
2 nicoise and 2 Castelvetrano Sicilian Green Olives pitted and sliced
a fresh basil leaf

Directions:
Brush each slice of bread with olive oil front and back. Top with a pinch of sea salt, a slice of buffalo mozzarella cheese, olives, basil, and place a few pieces of white chocolate on top. Sandwich together and place in a preheated Panini press. Press until golden and melted, 2-3 minutes. Bite…mmm!
A great sweet and savory hors d’oeuvre!

Up the Ante on your Game Day Popcorn

Many of the best recipes and inventions are those that creep up on you and nearly invent themselves. A few days ago, a fantastic, red headed, spicy mama-to-be friend of mine was over and as we popped Red Fire Toffee morsels, conversation somehow led us to the upcoming Superbowl. (hearts are broken around here as our Bears head to their cave for hibernation…

I’ll admit, I am a bit of a closet football fan. And, like most gatherings, it is a great reason to socialize with friends and eat really delectable and sometimes junky things. It must have been the conversation of football merging with the sensations in my mouth and my love of bringing up the high on the low food… all of a sudden I felt that the Red Fire Toffee had to be tossed together with hot buttery, salted popcorn.  I jumped up, grabbed my Indiana forged, Whirley Pop popper and set those kernels a-bursting! It must have been the spicy red head influence.

The key to this recipe is to toss the fresh and hot popcorn with melted salted butter and then immediately follow with roughly chopped toffee while it is still steaming so it begins to melt into the corn dispersing it’s chili-spiked, cinnamon toast notes all around. The slightly melted chocolate and toffee will marry with the popcorn forming a heavenly salty, sweet, crunchy snack that is SO good, it just might steal the attention from the game.

Red Fire Toffee Popcorn
Makes 12-15 cups

2/3 cup corn kernels
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup salted butter (or add 3/4 tsp Maldon salt to unsalted butter)
1/2 pound Red Fire Toffee, roughly chopped (traditional Caramel Toffee or Bacon Toffee would be good too!)
Salt to taste if needed

Heat the oil in a stove top popcorn popper or pan. Add the kernels and cover. Keep the popcorn moving to avoid burning. Melt the butter. Pour the butter over the hot popcorn. Immediately add the Red Fire Toffee and toss to combine. Add additional salt to taste if needed.

Turning Scraps into Treasures

There is waste and then there is waste.  Perhaps you can relate based on your own kitchen experience.  Scraps of pie dough in the oven with butter and sugar?  Discovery of sauteed beet root greens? In the Vosges Haut-Chocolat kitchen things melt, break, and get trimmed.  Yummy things that create yummy waste.

One of our most popular comfort foods, the Caramel Marshmallows were born out of desire to make a use for a yummy by-product.  We make our crunchy Caramel Toffee in sheets and then coat is with milk chocolate and then sprinkle on walnuts and pecans.  In order to sell bite-sized portions, we then break the toffee into chunks. When breaking this coated toffee, a small rain shower of crumbled nuts touched with chocolate that haven’t fully secured to the toffee.  At first, we all took turns bringing home bags of toffee crumble, as we called it, to sprinkle over ice cream.  But, as production grew, we had more crumble than we could use.

A brainstorm session led to the idea of marshmallows, then we considered caramel and then of course… I had to coat it all in chocolate.  Perched proudly on top, crowning our new Caramel Marshmallow creations, the leftover toffee crumble found its day in the sun.

The top photograph showing snacks of buttery, soft fresh caramel  is a common one in our kitchen when we make our Exotic Caramels and Wink of the Rabbit Caramels.  Batches are made in our old copper kettle (never more than 120 pounds at a time.)

We then pour the caramel on trays to cool.  After it is room temperature, we measure the caramels and cut them by hand, one-by-one into a perfect bite-sized morsel.  The by-product of our equally sized cut caramels is a pile of edges.  Our tray of caramels is brought to the enrober where the bites go under a chocolate waterfall, coating them in either milk or dark chocolate.  While the chocolate is still wet, we sprinkle freshly ground spices or organic nuts on top.

So, we find our way to my conundrum.  These piles of caramel scraps call to me.  Some are eaten of course.  But do they have a path to better ending?  Might they be as lucky as the toffee crumble and find their day in the sun?  What would YOU do with these caramel scraps?

Anxiously awaiting your ideas,

Katrina

Not Exactly a Pig in a Blanket

My bacon + chocolate experiment has been many years in the making and continues to evolve.  This year, I am taking it nearly full circle, right back to where I started:

1979: I began experimenting with bacon + chocolate at the tender age of 6, while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in Aunt Jemima® syrup served aside sizzling bacon.  Beside my stack of cakes, the bacon strips would swim in the flowing syrup and melted chocolate chips.  That became my favorite dipping sauce for bacon… and so the story begins.

2003: The opening of the Vosges Haut-Chocolat SoHo boutique in New York.  A desire to create sweet and savory, chocolate experiences for our guests led to a maple chocolate pudding in vodka glasses speared with crispy bacon.

2006: The Groove Collection launches.  Inside, the Blues truffle combines deep milk chocolate and my favorite, Nueske’s smoked bacon.

2007: To spread the word of bacon + chocolate far and wide, a candy bar was born.  In honor of my bacon-loving-fiend friend Mo, who believes everything is better with bacon, it was named Mo’s Bacon Bar. (Oh and he runs Zingerman’s mail order my favorite food mail order company.)

2008: Two new members join the bacon + chocolate family. For Mo’s wedding,  bacon + chocolate took flight in the form of a Flying Chocolate Pig.  Shortly after, the mini Mo’s Bacon Bar was born.

2009: And now the great unveiling…  A pancake mix that includes addictive bites of bacon and chocolate, circling the story back to its inception at my childhood breakfast plate. Keep reading and you may get to taste them….

Crystal Ball: It is still a little hazy, but it looks like a dark chocolate bacon bar.  Watch your inbox July 2009.

Ready to heat up your griddle?  Here’s a sneak preview of Mo’s Bacon Chocolate Pancake Mix for the first 50 takers.  CLICK HERE to make your way to a secret page on the Vosges site to buy the initial batch of this new product.  If you choose to partake, please use the Comments feature on this post to let me know how they work out.

For those who try the mix, here are a few extra tips for your first batch:

1. Do NOT over mix the batter.  When you stir too much, you release the carbon dioxide bubbles from the leavening agents and your pancakes will not be light and fluffy.

2. I highly, highly suggest using a little bacon fat on your griddle.  It brings all the flavors together.  Butter will also work just fine. But hey, serving the bacon is a must with the pancakes so you’ll have the fat, might as well use it.

3. You can either drop the Mo’s Bacon Bar chocolate chunks into the pancakes while cooking.  OR, put them between pancakes stacked up high.  Be sure to layer the chocolate in when the pancakes are hot so it will melt and ooze.

4. Want an extra adventure? Try making your own buttermilk.

Looking forward to your feedback!