By MELISSA CLARK
Published: February 11, 2009
A FEW years ago, I asked my husband, Daniel, what sweet treat I could make for him on Valentine's Day. Anything you crave, I promised -- chocolate tortes, chocolate truffles, raspberry tarts, nut-filled heart-shaped cookies with powdered sugar. ''What I'd really like,'' he said, ''is hot chocolate.'' That seemed like a simple request. But Daniel can't eat cream. Or milk. Or soy milk, rice milk or nut milk, for that matter. Making a really good hot chocolate without any of these wasn't, at least to me, an obvious maneuver.
My first thought was to skip the dairy and use water. I'd often read that in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, chocolate was consumed primarily as a frothy water-based beverage thickened with grains and sweetened with honey. Milk is a relatively recent, European addition. To find a recipe with some measure of authenticity, I turned to Maricel Presilla's fascinating book ''The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao With Recipes'' (Ten Speed Press, 2001). There were several dairyless hot chocolate concoctions, rich with spices like anise and cinnamon, even dried rosebuds. But all of them also called for obscure ingredients -- whole cacao beans and a toasted corn flour called pinole, for example. And I didn't have time to track them down before V-Day.
Then I remembered a sophisticated creamless version I learned from a French chocolatier. Milk, he sneered, murders the finer nuances of premium quality chocolate. I didn't necessarily agree. But since I didn't have a better idea, I followed his instructions, mixing cocoa powder and sugar with boiling water, then stirring in chopped 70 percent cocoa-mass chocolate until it melted. This hot chocolate was dark and concentrated, with a pronounced bitter edge. It was so intense that I served it in espresso cups. Daniel sipped his tiny portion. It was good, in an austere, highly adult way. But it wasn't the luscious hot chocolate of his dreams.
The following year, I tried again, whisking egg yolks into the water and cocoa. But I added too many and ended up with pudding. Any normal person might have given up. But with Valentine's Day rounding the corner again, I wanted to give it one more go.
Thinking back to those pre-Columbian recipes, I picked up Ms. Presilla's book. While flipping through the pages, I spotted a recipe for chocolate-coconut soup made with coconut milk. Coconut milk! It's creamy yet dairy free, easy to find. And, as any Mounds-bar lover will attest, coconut is a fantastic match with chocolate.
I mixed up a batch that night, using the sneering chocolatier's recipe but substituting coconut milk for some of the water. Fudgy, decadent, slightly bitter from the cocoa and very, very creamy, it was a cup of hot chocolate good enough to serve to my lactose-free Valentine. And that's really saying something.
Coconut Hot Chocolate
Time: 20 minutes
For the chocolate:
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 15-ounce can coconut milk
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
Pinch kosher salt
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
For the meringue (optional):
1 large egg white
3 tablespoons superfine sugar
1. Whisk cocoa into 1/3 cup boiling water.
2. In a saucepan, combine coconut milk, brown sugar and salt. Simmer, stirring, until sugar is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Whisk in hot cocoa and chocolate until smooth. Stir in vanilla.
3. In bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg white on medium speed until it begins to foam, about 1 minute. Add superfine sugar tablespoon by tablespoon as mixer is running. Beat until egg white stiffens to soft peaks and is shiny, 5 minutes. Dollop onto cups of hot chocolate.
Yield: 2 servings
Coconut Hot Chocolate
Time: 20 minutes
For the chocolate:
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 15-ounce can coconut milk
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
Pinch kosher salt
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, chopped (about 1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the meringue (optional):
1 large egg white
3 tablespoons superfine sugar
1. Whisk cocoa into 1/3 cup boiling water.
2. In a saucepan, combine coconut milk, brown sugar and salt. Simmer, stirring, until sugar is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Whisk in hot cocoa and chocolate until smooth. Stir in vanilla.
3. In bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg white on medium speed until it begins to foam, about 1 minute. Add superfine sugar tablespoon by tablespoon as mixer is running. Beat until egg white stiffens to soft peaks and is shiny, 5 minutes. Dollop onto cups of hot chocolate.
Yield: 2 servings.
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