Mousse Redux

Passover but sick of flourless chocolate cake? How about a layered chocolate and strawberry mousse instead? That was the plan. Instead of use our typical chocolate mousse recipe, we thought we'd go with a classic: Julia Child (by way of David Lebovitz). Then strawberry mousse.

Chocolate Mousse

• 6oz good chocolate chips
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2/3c sugar
• 6oz butter
• 1tsp instant espresso powder and 1/4c water (or 1/4c strong coffee)
• 2tbsp water
• pinch of salt
• 1/2tsp vanilla

This is a little complicated. Plan out your choice of bowls ahead of time. So, in one bowl, combine the chocolate chips, butter, and espresso. Melt over a double-boiler until, well, melted. Remove from heat. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, and 2tbsp water. Prepare a cold water bath. Whip the egg mixture together over a double boiler for 3 minutes, then remove and whip in the cold water bath until thick (it gets very thick). In a THIRD bowl, whip the egg whites and a pinch of salt until firm, then add the sugar and continue to beat until shiny and stiff. Add the vanilla and incorporate.

Now assemble: mix the chocolate and egg yolks together until completely mixed. Fold in 1/3 of the egg white, then the remaining egg white. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate. After 2 hours, top this with a layer of sliced strawberries.

Strawberry Mousse

• 1lb strawberries
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2c sugar
• 1/4c water
• 4 egg whites
• pinch of salt
• 1tbsp sugar
• 1/2c heavy whipping cream

In a saucepan, cook down the strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, and water until the strawberries are pretty decomposed. I even mashed them with a potato masher, actually. Then blend them (we used a stick blender) and let cool. When it's pretty cool (doesn't have to be COMPLETELY cool, but cool enough to touch), whip the egg whites with the salt and sugar, following the same process as outlined above. Then whip the whipping cream into stiff peaks in a separate bowl. Combine the strawberries and whipped cream, then the egg whites (1/3 first then the remainder). Pour over the now stiffened chocolate mousse. After 2 hours, top with another layer of sliced strawberries.

You could go on all day doing this, but we didn't. Serve (with a spoon? I guess?) and top with whipped cream.

Thoughts: This recipe is a little complicated, for either part. If you clean as you go and you plan out your bowls and utensils, you can get away without making a huge mess. If you don't plan ahead, you're going to have a bad time. But then, we had a bad time anyway. By the time we served this, it had completely deflated. It was like soup. Claire suggested maybe it was because we let it get warm and then cold again, which messed up the structural integrity, but I think we've had better success before. Anyway, total disaster. It was embarrassing because we had to serve it to everyone. Ugh. But then when we got home, we salvaged it by churning it into some extremely respectable ice cream.

Disaster Index: 6/10, but only because the flavor was good and it became good ice cream.

Black Bean and Espresso Chili

Ingredients

• olive oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 1 large, dried, hot pepper (we don't know what kind. It was in a bag of miscellaneous dried hot peppers)
  
• 1/8 cup instant espresso powder
• 1 tbsp cayenne powder
• 1 tbsp ancho chili powder
• 1/8 cup ground cumin
• 1/8 cup dried oregano leaves
• 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1/6 cup honey
• lots of garlic
• 1lb dried black beans
  
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1/4 lb ground beef
  
• salt
• 1 tbsp cinnamon

Do a quick soak on the black beans, and then also let them sit for several hours. You'll see why.
Heat oil in large, thick-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic and cook until onions are tender.
Mix in espresso powder, chili powders, cumin, and oregano. Cook 1 minute.
Add tomatoes, honey, and the dried pepper.
Bring to a simmer, and let cook for 10 minutes.
Add beans, stock, beef, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered until the mixture thickens. Sorry, you'll have to stir constantly. Theoretically, this should take 30 minutes.
Before you eat this, you'll probably need to remove the dried pepper skins. You don't want to eat that.
Eat the rest.

Thoughts: this didn't really go well at all. The worst part was that I guess we didn't soak the black beans ahead of time enough. Like, we soaked them for 8 hours, which is the recommended time, but even after three hours of cooking the chili, they weren't soft. I'm not sure how to prevent this in the future. I guess what we recommended above (a quick soak followed by a normal soak) would be a good place to start. Also, it was just a pain in the ass to cook. If you don't stir it 24/7, it sticks to the bottom of your pan. But you can't really stir it 24/7 because the tomato sauce spits all over you. Seriously, our stove looked like a war zone. Dan thought the flavor was good, but I was just so disappointed by the texture of the beans that I don't even care. Next time, I think we'll try doing it in the slow cooker or something. AND I couldn't really taste the espresso powder, which was supposed to be the most exciting thing about this recipe. Dan says he would make it again with a slow-cooker. I would rather just find a new recipe. I don't know. It's pretty good with cornbread though.

Disaster Index: 4.5/10