Hot White Chocolate

This is so delicious and so easy to make, you may need to lock the white chocolate away in a strong box and bury it in the backyard, so you won't be making it all the time; after all, while it's absolutely delicious, it is also laden with calories. Regular readers will already know that I use evaporated (canned) milk in many recipes, and that's what I use for this white hot chocolate, but I then also add regular milk. You certainly can use all regular milk, or even 2% milk (there are also 2% versions of canned milk). Canned milk "tends" to have a slightly off white color, as compared to regular milk. Likewise, white chocolate comes in slight variations of "white," depending upon brand. If you like a little "kick" to your white hot chocolate, add some Kahlua, rum or brandy. You can heat the milk and white chocolate on your stove top, or heat it in a microwave. Both milk and white chocolate can easily stick or scorch if you use your stove, unless you use low heat, keep stirring and devote your total attention to the mixture. The amount below is my suggestion for about 4 servings of white hot chocolate. You can use mini marshmallows or the larger types, and I suggest that when you add them to the hot chocolate, use your spoon to "dunk" them into the hot chocolate and then let them float on top covered in the creamy delicious hot chocolate.        

3/4 cup chopped white chocolate
1 1/2 cups canned (evaporated milk, NOT sweetened condensed milk)
1 1/2 cups regular or 2% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(optional) Kahlua, rum or brandy per individual serving
marshmallows

In a microwave safe dish, add the canned milk, regular milk, vanilla extract and chopped white chocolate. Heat for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, then check the temperature of the milk and stir. Heat further for about 30 seconds and check the temperature and consistency again. You'll be able to tell if the chocolate is well on its way to melting. You don't want the mixture to foam over. Heat at about 10 to 15 second intervals, until you reach the temperature you like. Myself, I don't like very hot drinks or foods, so I stop at the "precise" description of "good and warm." Haha! Whisk to make sure the chocolate is melted, pour into serving cups or mugs. If desired, serve the white hot chocolate with some Kahlua, rum or brandy and some marshmallows. Don't forget to lock the white chocolate in a strong box and to bury the box in the back yard. A friend of mine liked this so much, she had 3 servings with rum, then she locked her husband in a box, buried him in the backyard and went back inside and made 3 more servings. Hahaha! I'm just joking. She didn't didn't bury him in the backyard... she locked him in the cellar.   

WORD HISTORY:
Narrow-The origin of this word is a bit uncertain, although it "seems" to go back to an Indo European form of something like "sner" or "ner," with a meaning like, "to twist, to constrict, to wind (long 'i' sound)." ^ This gave Old Germanic, or perhaps only West Germanic, "narwaz," meaning, "twisted in tightness, constricted, narrowed." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "nearu," meaning, "not having great space, constricted;" as well as a number of figurative meanings like, "strict, severe, causing hardship." This then became "naru," then "narowe," before the modern form. Old English also had the verb "nearwian," meaning, "to make narrow or constricted, to make or to become smaller." The noun developed from the adjective as "nearewe/nearewo" (late 1100s?), but originally meant, "a hiding place," and also, "a place of confinement;" thus, "a prison," as well as, "a narrow place," and, "a danger." The verb has long meant "to lessen the distance between things," as in, "The runner in second place was able to narrow the gap with the leading runner," and also, often used with "down," and meaning, "to limit a number of things," as in, "The mother had to narrow down the invitation list for her daughter's birthday party to make it more manageable." The other Germanic languages have: German developed more figurative senses: "Narbe" (scar, "a mark left by a narrowed wound") and "Nehrung" (a narrow strip of land that juts into the sea to form a lagoon); Low German and Dutch "naar," meaning, "dismal, sad, ill," from the idea of constricted spaces being "dismal." Old Norse had forms used for geographic points with "straits;" that is, "narrows," but it's unclear if Old Norse borrowed its form from perhaps Low German, as all the West Germanic forms originally had the general meaning "narrow, constricted."  

^ Its origin might well be "sner" a possible form of the Indo European word that produced "snare," with "narrow" and its Germanic relatives being derived from a shortened West Germanic form "ner," where the "s" was not emphasized.    

White Chocolate Terrine

White chocolate does not have the cocoa solids that give the varying shades of color to "brown" chocolate. So is it really chocolate? The answer is easy for me... who the hell cares? I bought a chunk of Belgian white chocolate that was a little over 1 pound, but by the time I made the recipe, it was down to exactly 1 pound... hm, must have been mice. I used a 5 x 9 inch, 1.5 quart baking dish for this, but use what you have.

Ingredients:

about 1 pound white chocolate, chopped
1/2 stick unsalted butter, in pats
1/2 pint (8 ounces) heavy cream
3/4 cup dried cherries
1 cup walnuts, halves or chopped, but not into small pieces
mint leaves for garnish
fresh or dried cherries for garnish
some vegetable oil to coat dish

Add half of the chopped white chocolate and all of the heavy cream to a double boiler set up (a pan or bowl over a pan of barely simmering water). Stir often to keep the mixture smooth (a spatula is good to use). When the chocolate has melted, add half of the remaining white chocolate and melt it and blend it in, then do the same with the rest of the chocolate. When the chocolate is totally melted and smooth, add the butter, one piece at a time, until it is melted and mixed in. Lightly coat the dish you will use with some vegetable oil. Add a layer of a third of the chocolate to the bottom of the dish. Put the dish into the freezer for just a few minutes. Remove the dish from the freezer and now add a third of the dried cherries and the walnut pieces over the surface of the chocolate (as evenly as you can). Push the cherries and walnuts down into the chocolate (I used half of a walnut to push the cherries and walnuts into the chocolate). Place the dish into the freezer for another minute or two, then remove the dish from the freezer and add another third of the chocolate and a third of the cherries and walnuts, and repeat the process used above. Place the dish back into the freezer for another couple of minutes and repeat the same process for the final third of the chocolate and the cherries and walnuts. Place the dish back into the freezer for about 30 minutes (you don't want ice in this). Take the terrine from the freezer and run some warm water over a knife blade. Be sure to completely dry the knife blade, then run the blade around the perimeter of the dish. Also run a shallow pan of "warm," NOT HOT, water, and let the terrine dish sit in the warm water for a few minutes (I first tried to unmold the terrine after only about 2 minutes, and it wasn't enough time in the warm water, so I put the dish back into the warm water for about 3 more minutes, which worked). Turn the dish over onto a platter or plate, and give it a minute to loosen and come out of the dish. You can smooth it over, if it is a little rough looking from the unmolding, then put the terrine back into the freezer to solidify it completely again (10 to 15 minutes should be fine). You will need some warm water again to keep your knife warm enough to slice the terrine. Remember, this is a rich, sweet desert (You: "Ahh, Randy... that's 'dessert.' " R: "Well then how come we don't write, 'Don't dessert me now, when I need help?'  You: "Because we don't; now, get your damned fingers back to typing and finish this, I'm hungry!") Anyway, this is a rich, sweet dessert, so you don't need 2 inch slices for a serving, but rather about 1/4 to 1/3 inch slices. You can always reshape the slices a little if they don't come out exactly as you would like. Ideally you could leave the terrine in the refrigerator for several hours to make it easier to slice. I happened to have some fresh cherries on hand, so I included a couple on the plate with the white chocolate terrine, as well as some mint leaves, but you can just use a few dried cherries, or some thawed frozen cherries.

Click on the photo to enlarge...

WORD HISTORY:
Spatula-This word is distantly related to "spade" and to "spoon," both words are from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to the Indo European root "speh" (flat piece of wood) and an elongated form "speh-deh," which had the notion of "flat piece of wood for doing work." This gave Ancient Greek transliterated "spathe," meaning, "flat wooden blade used in a weaver's loom." This later expanded to include "metal blade" and the word was borrowed by Latin as "spatha," meaning, "blade of a sword, blade used as a tool." Its diminutive form in Latin was "spatula," meaning, "shoulder blade," but also, "kitchen tool/utensil for turning, scraping or stirring." The word was borrowed into English circa 1500 with the kitchen utensil meaning, but also with the limited meaning "type of medical scalpel."