chocolate covered strawberries

This was the dessert I didn't have time to make on Valentine's Day. The boss only wanted two things. A card that had "mom" written somewhere on it and chocolate covered strawberries. I made a little surf and turf for dinner and by the time we ate it was time for bed. I had these waiting for her when she got home from work Wednesday.

This recipe has a total of three ingredients so try to stay with me here. In a double boiler melt the chocolate and shortening. Next, wait for it....dip the strawberries in the melted chocolate. If you want them all fancy hang the tooth picks in a colander or stick them in a piece of styrofoam so they don't have a flat chocolate spot from laying down. As you can tell I wasn't feeling that fancy so I put mine on some wax paper. Just to be clear I tried melting some white chocolate to drizzle on but turns out white chocolate doesn't really like to be melted and I ended up with pasty white sludge. I think I rushed it.



This is kind of a two for one deal. something I've always wanted to try was chocolate and chile peppers.  Keeping things Aztec style in the midwest. For those brave enough to try eating something this crazy (and by crazy I mean something that has been done for centuries) do everything the same except add a small amount of dried chile's to the chocolate before you dip the strawberries. I had about half the chocolate left when I tried and put 2 1/2 teaspoons of cacsabel chiles. One thing I learned is you need to add a fair amount of chiles. Chocolate is hard to over power so finding a balance between chocolate and chiles requires what may seem like a lot of chiles. 

                          

This one was my end result. I added a small amount of salt too. Describing the taste is really hard and I'm not sure what I can compare it too. The cascabel is on the mild side so it didn't really add much more than a warming mouth feel as far as the heat goes but the chocolate and chile combo complimented each other very well. It added a complexity that I just can't explain. Imagine having hot chocolate and room temp but it tasting hot because of the chile. That, plus strawberry. I know to a lot of you this may be a little out there but it is crazy good and I'll be playing with the choco+chile combos in the near future. Dark chocolate and ancho chile is sure to be an amazing combo.

11 1/2 oz bag Ghirardelli or other quality milk chocolate chips

1 1/2 T shortening

strawberries

2 T cascabel or other milder chile peppers