Chocolate — the feel good food - The Jewish Chronicle

Five unusual ways to use chocolate

1. A South American and Spanish tradition uses chocolate to thicken sauces — adding a little dark chocolate to adds a rich depth of flavour and creates a voluptuous velvety consistency in savoury meat stews. Use 100 percent cocoa content chocolate for this or chocolate of at least 70 percent cocoa.

2. For a gentler start to your day, replace your morning coffee with cacao nibs steeped in boiling water for 5-10 minutes with a little milk and sugar to taste.

3. Add texture and fruitiness to the crust of any fish dish, by sprinkling with cocoa nibs as you grill, bake or griddle. Madagascan nibs have wonderful nutty, berry and citrus notes.

4. Take your porridge to the next level by replacing the honey or maple syrup drizzle with a a square of high-quality 100% cocoa grated in, or a teaspoon of good-quality 100% cocoa powder. The natural sweetness of milk (or sweetened milk alternatives) will make your breakfast taste like a rich chocolate dessert while the added cocoa helps to give you a boost.

5. Cocoa nibs make a crunchy, healthy alternative to nuts in home made granola.

Five Jewish chocolate history facts:

1. Christopher Columbus is believed to be the first European to find chocolate in the Americas, and many historians (including the late Simon Wiesenthal) believe he had Jewish ancestry. Sadly, he had no idea what he had found and thought cocoa beans were goat’s droppings or almonds.

2. Jewish entrepreneurs — who had fled from Spain to Bayonne during the Spanish Inquisition — introduced chocolate to France in the early 1600s.

3. During the 1600’s and 1700’s, ‘chocolate’ referred to hot cocoa – a sweet and spicy drink that took Europe by storm. England’s first inn selling it was opened in 1650 in Oxford by someone from Lebanon known as Jacob the Jew.

4. In 1832, Jewish baker’s apprentice — 16 year old Franz Sacher — invented the world famous chocolate cake, Sachertorte, for his chocophile employer Prince Klemens von Metternich.

5. In World War II, the Jewish scientist Lord Victor Rothschild helped foil a Nazi plot to assassinate Winston Churchill by smuggling an exploding chocolate bar into the Cabinet War Rooms.

Five reasons chocolate is good for you:

1. Theobromine, the stimulant in chocolate is a mild, long-lasting and non-addictive —- unlike caffeine which has a more dramatic,

addictive and short-lived impact.

2. Unsweetened chocolate contains polyphenols – antioxidants that can help prevent heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Cocoa is also high in iron and may lower cholesterol.

3. Dark chocolate contains flavonoids which have anti-viral, antitumour and anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that increase

blood flow and increase oxygen levels in the brain.

4. For centuries people have claimed cacao acts as an aphrodisiac thanks to the two key chemicals: tryptophan, which is involved in the sexual arousal; the ‘love drug’ phenylethylamine, a stimulant which is said to be released when people fall in love.

5. Dark chocolate is packed with nutrients — the darker the chocolate the better, but any 70 percent dark chocolate or higher contains antioxidants, fibre, potassium, calcium, copper and magnesium.

Find more chocolate recipes and facts in Babka, Boulou & Blintzes which will be published on September 1 2021. Available to pre-order here.

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