Chocolate and meat pairing: Rococo Chocolates and The Ginger Pig

This is chocolate week ending with a grand chocolate show at Olympia. Several films have featured chocolates and even chocolate and meat combinations. Whether or not you have tried one of these before, chocolate combined with meat is an interesting experience.

If you are looking for fun evenings out three shops near Baker Street and Madame Tussauds offer a huge choice of events. Cross the road opposite Madame Tussauds next to Baker Street station, walk left along the road to Marylebone High street. Beyond the mini park is a side street, Moxon Street, continuing The Ginger Pig where you can buy meat, next door is La Fromagerie where you can buy fruit and cheese and have coffee and cake or a meal, and opposite is the Rococo Chocolate shop. All three have leaflets about forthcoming events. You can also check out their websites.

I went to an event at which the Ginger Pig and the Rococo chocolate shop had combined to provide an evening of chocolate and meat pairing. The evening cost £25 and we tasted beef and chocolate, parma ham and chocolate, and truffle chocolate with duck confit.

We received a very informative talk from the PR lady from the Ginger Pig and a man from the Rococo chocolate shop.

I learned the history of the Ginger Pig farms in England and how customers ask if they make Parma ham, which is something they have to import because Parma ham means it comes from Parma in Italy and is a protected name. We started with delicious thinly sliced beef, combined with chocolate, a surprisingly good combination. Next was peppery chocolate with child, which some loved but I found the child overpowering.

For me the most visually appealing and unusual meat was the salami with slices of hazelnut. I'm not a fan of salami, which I usually find fatty and as I'm on a beat cancer diet I generally avoid processed foods. But if you do like salami, it's great. If you want to serve it to others, it would be a novelty starter or main course or buffet selection for a dinner party or special occasion.

The other good thing about the evening was we were able to linger in the downstairs room as a group, chatting to the organisers and each other, so it was a convivial social occasion. (Not like some wine tasting where you feel you are lectured at, ignored by other guests who are in twosomes ignoring you, and made to feel that you are expected to leave unless you are buying, or end so late you need to leave the party and rush for your train.)

At the end of the evening we were offered a chance to finish off the leftover meat. I have to say that combining met with chocolate enables you to eat half a dozen chocolates without feeling overwhelmed by the sugar. However, you have piled on the calories and feel fully the end, without any bread or vegetables.

If I were serving at home, I would include fruit and vegetables. Meat and chocolate is a pretty unbalanced combination if you are not eating anything else. We had bought ourselves coffee and  cheese and grape platter in advance over the road in La Fromagerie. The man from Rococo chocolates, in whose basement we met for the evening event, said that when he served a chocolate 'kebab' or canapé at the chocolate show at the end of the week he will add dried fig to the chocolates. I feel that the addition of fruit is a good idea.

Full marks to the organisers. The only thing missing was a card and free gift party bag to take home.  They also missed out on a chance to give us a discount, a two for one offer, or a free or cheap or expensive pack continuing a free apron or tea towel.

We did manage to put a business card in the card collecting container on the shop counter for a prize drawer.

Another guest was smart enough to think of having a selfie taken with one of the organisers, which I had forgotten, so before I left I did that. (Reminder to self, always have lipstick on and hair combed ready for a selfie with the organisers.)




All in all, educational, entertaining, social, great networking and good company.

For details of the chocolate show, tickets and pictures, see:
http://www.salonduchocolat.co.uk/visit.aspx

For the Rococo Chocolates shop:

http://www.rococochocolates.com
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.

Pork, pies, bergamot, French cheese, and chocolates for choosy people in London

La Fromagerie
   You pass through the fruit and vegetable area. We bought purple carrots and bergamot.
Bergamot, the size of a large orange or small grapefruit. Tastes tart as lemon. Very aromatic. That perfume was used in Earl Grey tea, made famous by Twinings. Then, if I understood right, a smaller crop resulted in a shortage of bergamot and high prices so the amount of Bergamot was reduced in the brand leader and big seller of the tea. Maybe another year bergamot will be restored to favour and flavour. Just rubbing a slice of the peeled off skin around the taps and sink in an effort to reduce limescale produced a wonderful aroma.

    Back to the subject of the place where we bought Bergamot, La Fromagerie. The cheese room is chilled behind a sliding glass door.
   If you are feeling hungry or thirsty, try a slice of cake. Backless wooden stools and tables, not for lingering. But good for a quick coffee on your way home to the station.
  I highly recommend the frangipane.
Toilets downstairs in the basement.

Seasonal fruits included bergamot in November 2014.

 Next door is The Ginger pig. Dry cured hams, bacon, sausages, homemade charcuterie. Meat hug for longer than that served by most supermarkets. Deli counter has pies to take away.

The Ginger Pig

Rococo Chocolates
   Opposite is a Rococo Choclates shop. Expensive - suitable for somebody who does not want regular brands from supermarkets such as Waitrose and Tesco. (You can buy me Thorntons chocolates from Tesco and chocolates from Marks and Spencers!) But I have Asian friends who expect a novelty chocolate as a thank you if they invite you to dinner at an expensive restaurant.
Another branch of this shop is in Knightsbridge near Harrods and Petrus restaurant.

All in Moxon Street off Marylebone High Street near Madame Tussauds and Baker Street station, London.

(Post under construction. I stopped to eat. Come back later.)

Shopping For Food For Dinner & Dinner Parties In London

Dinner party with napkins depicting grapes. Paper napkins bought from one of the vineyards and museum shops in the Rioja region of Spain.

Dinner Party Checklist

I recently attended a family and friends dinner party. First find recipes you like using seasonal foods. Some people think red wine is warming in winter. It certainly is, in colour, although for years I served only white wine because I was allergic to tannins and wanted to save my white tablecloths from stains.  

Our starter was salmon en croute, home made. We used salmon bought from Waitrose supermarket and readymade roll out fill pastry but added the butter sauce between the salmon and cooked the salmon and sauce in the pastry fresh for the dinner party. Make sure you buy plain salmon, not lightly smoked.

Use dill butter. Add lemon zest (from a fresh lemon) in the dill mayonnaise sauce. Mayonnaise is only egg yolk and vegetable or olive oil. You can make garlic mayonnaise with fresh garlic. A short cut if you are short of time - use bottled dill mayonnaise.

We served the salmon with three dips, wholegrain mustard, mayonnaise.

On the subject of meat vendors, our chef/cook, call the host what you will, says the rack of lamb was from The Ginger Pig. This amazing shop is in Moxon Street, Marylebone, near Baker Street station, which is conveniently on the Metropolitan, Circle, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines. (The pig breeds are on the Ginger Pig shop website.) 

Herbs included rosemary from the garden. Rosemary is a shrub which grows all year. 

It's very easy to grow. You just pick off a bit from a plant and stick it in the ground and water it. We've had so much rain in England that unless you plant your cutting in a hot, dry summer spell, you hardly need to look at it again. But then, I probably would go out watching anxiously over my cutting for a week to check it still looked all right. And I'd plant half a dozen cuttings. Then if one failed, or only one succeeded, I'd be certain of gaining at least one new plant. 

If you live near me and know me, just ask, and I'll let you take a cutting. Better still, I'll cut off a piece, I will feel generous, you will feel favoured, and I will put it in a plastic bag for you to take home.

In addition to rosemary, the family bought fresh basil and thyme from Waitrose. I'm not sure it added anything to the flavour of the food. But it does give aroma to the kitchen and home to welcome guests.

The Suffolk Charlotte potatoes, carrots, Italian grapes and cheeses (Petit Taupiniere and not Brie de Meaux but Brie de Melun) were from La Fromagerie next door to the Ginger Pig, in Moxon St.

We ran into a problem with our dessert of hot pineapple in syrup contrasting with cold vanilla ice cream. One of the guests was allergic to pineapple. So the cook quickly put an apple in the oven to bake.

We forgot that you have to make a horizontal cut around the middle of the apple to stop it bursting. So we hid the fact that the apple had burst by hiding it in a large bulbous cup. Bulbous meaning a large round shape cut which looks as though the top is cut off, so just the top of the apple shows.

You put sultanas and a sweetener in the middle. Our traditional family recipe required you to cut chunks out of the middle of the cored apple. You can mix in chopped nuts, flaked nuts, almonds (not if your sensitive guests are allergic to nuts - best to ask first. For sweetness, honey, marmalade, best of all your own syrup made from brown sugar dissolved in hot water with added flavours such as cloves or star anise. You could add juice from tinned fruit. Purists add chunks or puree from any other fruit.

On this occasion we served a gritty chocolate. The smoothest, milkiest chocolate we've found is Lindt. Green & Black's do lots of bars of dark chocolate with fruit flavours and spices.

The chocolate brand we used on this occasion was Dolceria Bonajuto which our cook buys at Gelupo, Archer St.  They do a great affogato too!

For more about ice cream see next post.

Angela Lansbury is a travel, food and wine writer, author of 20 books (10 by traditional publishers, 10 self-published). You can watch Angela talking about table etiquette on YouTube. (Angela Lansbury the actress is likely to pop up first, so type in Angela Lansbury author or Angela Lansbury poet or Angela Lansbury speaker Toastmasters.) You can read posts by Angela on her other blogs, also on Facebook and LinkedIn.