The Inspiration
I was so excited the night before my Thai Inspired inclusion class that I bought every ingredient that Nat said we could possibly need at Home Town Supermarket in Birmingham. Soon after I realized I had many more ingredients than I could ever go through. I found this recipe from Hot Thai Kitchen for green curry paste and started cooking. As I ground herbs and spices I had never used before like Makrut Lime leaves and galangal I wanted to some how find a way to capture these bright, layered nuanced flavors in my chocolate. I also wanted to maintain the smooth texture of my single origin chocolate bars which led to this layered approach of vegan chocolates.
The Approach
I love Jasmine rice and will even eat it cold out of the fridge. Jasmine rice is so fragrant and melds in with a good curry while also standing up to it. I couldn’t imagine a Thai curry bar without it, so I started there for my base. The bottom layer of this bar is reminiscent of white chocolate, yet dairy free. We replace the milk in this vegan white chocolate with ground jasmine rice and dried coconut. The resulting chocolate is barely sweet yet incredibly fragrant.
The next layer represents the green curry itself. We take our 80% single origin Pangoa Peru dark chocolate and blend in toasted cumin, coriander, galangal, lemongrass and green Thai chilies. We add these spice to the chocolate grinder in the final stages, providing earthy flavor notes and soft heat. These bold spices and slightly acidic chocolate balance each other nicely.
For a final drizzle I used a technique Nat taught us to infuse cocoa butter. For my version I toasted Makrut lime leaves with lemongrass from my garden and combined it with cocoa butter from Ecuador. This mixture then infused in a sous vide machine for several hours. Citrusy and bright, into the grinder it went along with raw cane sugar and more coconut. The citrusy oil slick on top of a bowl of curry is just what I was after with this layer.
The Final Bar
Tempering three chocolates at once was a real challenge, as anyone who has worked with chocolate will know. When you eat this bar it’s snappy, smooth and creamy. The taste is very surprising as the layers play out one by one. First, a not too sweet or assertive jasmine rice layer, then the more bold and earthy dark chocolate green curry layer, followed by just a drizzle of bright citrusy aromatic coconut vegan white chocolate.
Check out our other Thai Curry inspired chocolate; the Massaman Curry Crunch bar here.