at Mon, 08 Dec 2003 12:44:00 GMT in bur8tv86u9g4acjr111o3l5a0jk85s8et5@
4ax.com, (Frogleg) wrote :

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 22:18:05 -0800, Marilyn
wrote:

Hello,
I'm preparing the snacks for my book club meeting. Usually the snack
foods are taken from some mention in the current book we're reading.
We just finished Skipping Christmas, and the foods that stick out in
my mind are white chocolate and pistachios. Does anyone have a good
(but easy) recipe that includes one or both? Also, any ideas for a
beverage? This will be a small group 6-8, and the meeting will be in
the library of an elementary school so I won't be able to heat
anything.

Looks like white chocolate 'bark' is simplicity itself. Melt
chocolate, add nuts, pour onto a wax-paper-covered baking sheet and
spread out. Cool. Break into pieces. Can you take thermoses of coffee
& tea?

Not *quite* so simple, chocolate has to be "tempered", and white chocolate
is especially sensitive. You have to melt very slowly, then follow the
tempering instructions I and many other individuals have given many times
(esp. on rec.food.chocolate - easy to find in DejaNews), then dump in the
pistachios. Make sure they're unsalted, too: salted pistachios in bark are
pretty sick.

An easier one is white chocolate truffles rolled in pistachios: you make
ganache, again, as per numerous posts, using white chocolate, grind up the
pistachios in a nut grinder (not to butter, just into little pieces, and
roll balls of the white ganache in the pistachios. You can also mix ganache
with ground pistachios and use that for the truffles.

Another idea is something like a Buche de Noel, using white chocolate
pistachio ganache to fill the cake, which should be a simple white sponge
cake, and making an icing by melting butter with twice as much white
chocolate, cooling somewhat, spreading on top, and topping with pistachios.

Both of these ingredients also complement the Middle Eastern puddings made
with condensed milk and flavoured with rosewater and cardamom, e.g. firni,
kheer, Shir Berenj, etc. By melting and tempering some white chocolate,
coating a few cupcake/muffin paper cups with a thin amount of it, filling
the inside with one of these puddings, and topping with chopped pistachios,
you could make a real show-stopper of a dessert. Removing the paper cups
from the chocolate once it had been cooled and filled creates an extremely
elegant dessert: pudding in chocolate cups. Be sure to cool the pudding all
the way before spooning into the cups! This one is semi-elaborate but not
really as hard as it looks, especially if you make Shir Berenj, the Persian
version of rice pudding (I have a good recipe for this, if you're
interested)

I have many, many more ideas - you have fortunately chosen 2 ingredients
that naturally complement each other in infinite ways - it's easy to come
up with idea after idea.

Be sure that you use El Rey white chocolate, the *only* one worth
considering. It's a quantum leap above all other white chocolates in
quality. You can order from http://www.chocosphere.com.

--
Alex Rast

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