Dear Constant Reader,
For this foray into historic cooking, here’s something with ingredients most of you love — chocolate and booze!
This recipe comes from The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary: or, the Accomplish’d Housewives Companion by John Nott (1726).
To make Wine Chocolate
Take a pint of Sherry, or a pint and half of red Port, four Ounces and a half of Chocolate, six Ounces of fine Sugar, and half an Ounce of white Starch, or fine Flour; mix, dissolve, and boil all these as before [previous recipe for “To Make Chocolate with Water” which “will be done in ten or twelve Minutes”]. But, if your Chocolate be with Sugar, take double the Quantity of Chocolate, and half the Quantity of Sugar; and so in all.
After years of working with medieval recipes which are vague, to say the least, on quantities and cooking times, this recipe was positively simple! I cut all the ingredients down to one-third, which made two generous servings.
Just melt together port (or sherry, but I haven’t tried that version), unsweetened chocolate (you want a high-quality bar chocolate; cocoa powder is not the same thing), sugar, and rice flour (it incorporates better than wheat flour).
In the 18th century, this drink would have been served in a special chocolate pot with a hole in the lid. A “mill” or wooden whisk would fit in the hole and the chocolate would be frothed before serving it by rubbing the mill between your palms. I don’t have a chocolate pot, but I do have a
molinillo, which is used for making Mexican hot chocolate and is basically the same as a mill, just fancier. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get the mixture to froth at all. Oh well.
The wine chocolate is very rich, but not terribly sweet, and the starch makes it very thick. I couldn’t finish my cup, so I stashed the leftovers in the fridge and had it a couple of days later over ice cream. So decadent!
And here’s my version.
Wine Chocolate a deux
1 cup ruby port (or about 2/3 cup of sherry)
1 1/2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, broken into pieces
2 oz. white sugar (about 1/4 cup)
1 1/2 teaspoons rice flour
Heat the port gently in a saucepan and add the chocolate and sugar. Stir until they dissolve. Stir in the rice flour and let the mixture simmer (not boil, despite what the original recipe says) for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time. Froth with a mill, molinillo or whisk and then quickly pour into cups.
Serves 2 generously.
The item on the saucer is an Elizabethan Jumble. Perhaps that will be the next historic cookery post.