TERRY'S CHOCOLATE ONION (& FRIENDS)
All right, sir!
Well, here we are. The best part of 4 months, 1 broken arm, and the worst part of 40 grand (i.e. almost all of it) stuffed into a builder's pocket after my last post, and I finally have a kitchen in my house again. And indeed a back wall, roof, sink that doesn't just vomit tepid dish filth directly onto the floor because it isn't hooked up, washing machine for fresh pants, cooker, lounge not full of pots and pans and so on. Oh, and a mostly working arm - nearly forgot that, despite it being quite literally in front of my face. So obviously what better way to celebrate than by getting straight back to ruining perfectly good food and giving myself indigestion?
If I were some sort of hipster lifestyle writer who'd been off round the world to 'discover myself' (read: get drunk at someone else's expense) and find a whole new load of taste sensations to blog about, I'd probably pass off the posting break as deliberate and grandly call this 'Season 2' or something. Admittedly I have been on holiday while I've been away, and did try some new foods I found on my travels. However, this was specifically a type of biscuit they sold in Lidl in Portugal that I bought for reasons that I assume are embarrassingly apparent:
So yes, as you can see, the quality and maturity bar hasn't so much been set higher as fallen off the bar supports entirely into a puddle before rolling away into a ditch. But then you're just here because you want to hear about me making myself feel sick, so who's the weirdo really, eh? EH???
...yes, it's me isn't it? Oh well, off we go then for another few months of culinary disasters until, I dunno, it turns out the extension was built on a cursed graveyard and my fridge gets possessed by Zuul. In the meantime, and in keeping with the holiday vibe, this week we're doing a spin on everyone's duty free favourite: a Terry's Chocolate Orange. Or in our case, a Terry's Chocolate Onion - and also radish and olive ones, because why not? Misery loves company, after all.
If you're going to deliberately balls up some chocolate balls by tainting them with 'unpleasants', you'll have to send your own personal Igor to grasp the following for you to Frankenstein together:
100 g - 10 g of dark chocolate (I ate some)
100 g - 10 g of milk chocolate (I ate some of this too)
Some radishes
Some onions
Some olives
Some form of spherical mould - I bought some cheapo round ice cube* trays from Amazon, so now in typical cack-handed Amazon logic of you'd obviously want loads more of what you've already bought, I'm being bombarded by adverts for further novelties along the same lines. Hand grenades, skulls, tits/cocks (god bless the hen/stag do market) - the novelty cold water shaping niche is bigger than I thought.
*Ice spheres? Ball cubes? Ice bolas?!? You know what I mean anyway. Though after all that I'm not sure I do.
Like a greased sloth reversing into a booby-trapped sleeping bag I'm easing myself back into this slowly and carefully, so nothing too tricky this week. First job is to chop your various 'taints' so that they're ready to go for when your chocolate is melted. Or, in the case of the radish, you might want to grate it then give the gratings a little squeeze, as radishes are well soggy bois innit.
Then, before you melt your chocolate you might need to patch up some holes in your moulds if you're basically bastardising them for this purpose. I did, and for some reason used micropore medical tape and a bit of foil. There was some logic in this - I thought it'd stick better to the silicone than regular sellotape. What I ended up with though is something that looked like I was trying to surgically patch the udder of a robot cow:
Once your cyborg bovine teats have been bunged right up, you can melt your chocolate. You can do this in a saucepan and with a bain marie (which I assume is the French for 'Mary's bath', which speaks volumes about what filthy behaviour is acceptable in gallic cooking) and it'll come out nice and glossy and all professional looking. So obviously, fuck that lark - break it all up into a bowl then microwave it for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until runny.
Now you can 'ball up'. I put in a couple of teaspoons of un-ruined chocolate into each half first, then in a separate bowl mixed a few spoonsful more with my flavour of choice.
Give it a good stir to let the chocolate infuse - or to put it another way, completely ruin it - and then add it to the mould and topping up so you have a nice smooth hemisphere. Then on to the next one until they're all ready to pop in the fridge to firm up.
After about an hour, they'll be what I would describe as 'really sodding hard'. So hard, that I abandoned my plan of sticking the two halves together for an authentic chocolate orange look on the basis that trying to gnaw a chunk off of a completed 'sphere' would be like trying to eat a snooker ball. A raw one at that!
Pop them out of their moulds, and - should you be going for the proper globe effect, and teeth be damned - get a hot knife and make the insides of each half a bit melty so you can stick them together. I didn't do that as mentioned above, but if I had it would have looked a lot like this, only without the fingers. Or at least not the fingers holding it together - I'm not suggesting it would start levitating or anything:
Well I can't put it off any longer - it's eating time. Or rather I couldn't put it off any longer the other day - I'm not writing this live, after all. Apart from anything else I don't have the wrists for it (broken arm, remember? I can barely lift a kettle these days, let alone throw one over a pub or type up events in real-time). But for the purposes of suspense, just pretend I haven't written the ending yet and don't skip ahead or you'll spoil the surprise! (Shit! I've just given away there's a surprise. Er...just ignore this paragraph as well. But not this bit of it, obviously.)
Chocolate onion
Well the good news was, this didn't smell as bad as I thought it would. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't exactly great on the nose either and you wouldn't want this odour belching out from an airwick in your lavvy, but the immersion in choc at least prevented the infamous onion weeping effect. This could be a good or bad thing though, as if you made one of these and thought it was so bad it made you cry, if it had really stunk you could have at least passed it off as due to the fumes to retain your tough guy/gal image.
Taste-wise, this wasn't as bad as I feared but was still fairly unpleasant - mainly because of the acrid aftertaste. As soon as the chocolateyness had gone, it was just burning raw onion flavour. You know - the bit of any salad or garnish everyone always picks out because newsflash, chefs: it's bloody horrible so STOP DOING IT, YOU TWATS.
These could be popular with people who drink a lot of cheap spirits I suppose, as they'll already be used to the burning gullet sensation. Them, and professional sword swallowers. But for the rest of us it's probably too much of a challenge for the palette. Which is a polite way of saying it tastes like shit.
Chocolate radish
Given how damp the radish was even after being effectively wrung out, I was slightly amazed this one had set at all. But not as amazed as I was at the taste.
Brace yourself for this: this wasn't just OK, or nice. It was really, really delicious. So delicious, I'm absolutely going to make these again if only to prove to myself it wasn't some bizarre fluke. Somehow, the radish absorbs the choccy flavour and is a nice texture (no, I'm not sure how this happens either given radishes are hard little sods) and the peppery kick goes really well with it (not a massive surprise given chilli chocolate is great, but still). And for once, there are no buts! I genuinely urge you to try making radish chocolate - it may have been entirely accidental, but bugger me - I've become a legit supermodern-style gourmet!
Olive chocolate
...for about 30 seconds, because now we're back down to earth with a bump. Specifically, a bump in the throat like you get when you're about to be sick. I knew I might be in a bit of trouble here, as this one smelled really odd. Sort of mouldy vegetation odd.
So how did it go down? Well, I'm not a big fan of salt in sweets at the best of times. And the fact that shoving salt into confectionary is now the lazy-arse shortcut to bunging up the price and passing it off as something special is thoroughly annoying. But I know some people (namely: idiots) like their toffee to taste a bit like it has been wiped round an empty crisp bag - and those people might just about like this. For me though, it was just a wronged-up version of something already really wrong in the first place - it tasted like a salted caramel muffin you've fished out of a bin outside a greengrocers on a hot day shortly after he's dumped all his out of date cabbages in it. A lovely chocolatey taste and then...urgh. Bogeys a la sprout.
So all in all, a mixed bag. We've had a huge triumph and a real big minger. But we're at least off and running again - and yes, I did get indigestion. Bloody raw onions.
Well, here we are. The best part of 4 months, 1 broken arm, and the worst part of 40 grand (i.e. almost all of it) stuffed into a builder's pocket after my last post, and I finally have a kitchen in my house again. And indeed a back wall, roof, sink that doesn't just vomit tepid dish filth directly onto the floor because it isn't hooked up, washing machine for fresh pants, cooker, lounge not full of pots and pans and so on. Oh, and a mostly working arm - nearly forgot that, despite it being quite literally in front of my face. So obviously what better way to celebrate than by getting straight back to ruining perfectly good food and giving myself indigestion?
If I were some sort of hipster lifestyle writer who'd been off round the world to 'discover myself' (read: get drunk at someone else's expense) and find a whole new load of taste sensations to blog about, I'd probably pass off the posting break as deliberate and grandly call this 'Season 2' or something. Admittedly I have been on holiday while I've been away, and did try some new foods I found on my travels. However, this was specifically a type of biscuit they sold in Lidl in Portugal that I bought for reasons that I assume are embarrassingly apparent:
 |
| I don't know who Les is, but I'm guessing he sweats a lot as his crackers are well salty. |
...yes, it's me isn't it? Oh well, off we go then for another few months of culinary disasters until, I dunno, it turns out the extension was built on a cursed graveyard and my fridge gets possessed by Zuul. In the meantime, and in keeping with the holiday vibe, this week we're doing a spin on everyone's duty free favourite: a Terry's Chocolate Orange. Or in our case, a Terry's Chocolate Onion - and also radish and olive ones, because why not? Misery loves company, after all.
Ingredients:
 |
| Not pictured: me swearing profusely after finding out we already had a massive bag of bloody onions in the fridge. |
If you're going to deliberately balls up some chocolate balls by tainting them with 'unpleasants', you'll have to send your own personal Igor to grasp the following for you to Frankenstein together:
100 g - 10 g of dark chocolate (I ate some)
100 g - 10 g of milk chocolate (I ate some of this too)
Some radishes
Some onions
Some olives
Some form of spherical mould - I bought some cheapo round ice cube* trays from Amazon, so now in typical cack-handed Amazon logic of you'd obviously want loads more of what you've already bought, I'm being bombarded by adverts for further novelties along the same lines. Hand grenades, skulls, tits/cocks (god bless the hen/stag do market) - the novelty cold water shaping niche is bigger than I thought.
*Ice spheres? Ball cubes? Ice bolas?!? You know what I mean anyway. Though after all that I'm not sure I do.
Method:
Like a greased sloth reversing into a booby-trapped sleeping bag I'm easing myself back into this slowly and carefully, so nothing too tricky this week. First job is to chop your various 'taints' so that they're ready to go for when your chocolate is melted. Or, in the case of the radish, you might want to grate it then give the gratings a little squeeze, as radishes are well soggy bois innit.
 |
| Here's some I did earlier. I'd like to say I'm going for the whole shabby chic mismatching crockery vibe, but to be honest I only have 2 of those little dish things so had to use an eggcup. Classy. |
Then, before you melt your chocolate you might need to patch up some holes in your moulds if you're basically bastardising them for this purpose. I did, and for some reason used micropore medical tape and a bit of foil. There was some logic in this - I thought it'd stick better to the silicone than regular sellotape. What I ended up with though is something that looked like I was trying to surgically patch the udder of a robot cow:
 |
| Well that's not disturbing at all. Still, look at that worktop! No really, please do. It cost me a shitting fortune and I'm going to be paying it off for years. |
Once your cyborg bovine teats have been bunged right up, you can melt your chocolate. You can do this in a saucepan and with a bain marie (which I assume is the French for 'Mary's bath', which speaks volumes about what filthy behaviour is acceptable in gallic cooking) and it'll come out nice and glossy and all professional looking. So obviously, fuck that lark - break it all up into a bowl then microwave it for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until runny.
 |
| I mean, obviously it'd kill you within a few weeks from the fat and sugar, but just pour some milk on that and the above would be the best breakfast 'cereal' ever! You could even throw on a raspberry for 1 of your 5 a day! Who says healthy eating has to be boring? What? Oh yeah, the death bit. Oh. |
Now you can 'ball up'. I put in a couple of teaspoons of un-ruined chocolate into each half first, then in a separate bowl mixed a few spoonsful more with my flavour of choice.
 |
| Nothing like a hernia truffle, eh? |
Give it a good stir to let the chocolate infuse - or to put it another way, completely ruin it - and then add it to the mould and topping up so you have a nice smooth hemisphere. Then on to the next one until they're all ready to pop in the fridge to firm up.
Results:
 |
| On the left, we have 'trying to do it nice and neatly'. On the right, we have 'oh shit the chocolate is cooling down faster than I thought getitingetitingetitin quiiiiiick'. |
Pop them out of their moulds, and - should you be going for the proper globe effect, and teeth be damned - get a hot knife and make the insides of each half a bit melty so you can stick them together. I didn't do that as mentioned above, but if I had it would have looked a lot like this, only without the fingers. Or at least not the fingers holding it together - I'm not suggesting it would start levitating or anything:
 |
| Obi-Wan: That's no moon. It's a space st...oh wait no, it's just a horrible chocolate. Sorry, my eyes aren't great these days. Luke: Couldn't you just use the force, Ben? Obi-Wan: Usually, but I can't concentrate just now. I...I need the toilet again. Can we stop at the next services please? We can get some more Werther's Originals too for me to share with Luke, my special little boy! Mmm. Han: Oh man! |
Well I can't put it off any longer - it's eating time. Or rather I couldn't put it off any longer the other day - I'm not writing this live, after all. Apart from anything else I don't have the wrists for it (broken arm, remember? I can barely lift a kettle these days, let alone throw one over a pub or type up events in real-time). But for the purposes of suspense, just pretend I haven't written the ending yet and don't skip ahead or you'll spoil the surprise! (Shit! I've just given away there's a surprise. Er...just ignore this paragraph as well. But not this bit of it, obviously.)
Chocolate onion
Well the good news was, this didn't smell as bad as I thought it would. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't exactly great on the nose either and you wouldn't want this odour belching out from an airwick in your lavvy, but the immersion in choc at least prevented the infamous onion weeping effect. This could be a good or bad thing though, as if you made one of these and thought it was so bad it made you cry, if it had really stunk you could have at least passed it off as due to the fumes to retain your tough guy/gal image.
 |
| I've even eaten it into a sort of orange segment shape for authenticity. And not 'orang' segment as I nearly posted - which is just as well, as I'm not sure I'm orally dextrous enough to gnaw an ape shape. |
Taste-wise, this wasn't as bad as I feared but was still fairly unpleasant - mainly because of the acrid aftertaste. As soon as the chocolateyness had gone, it was just burning raw onion flavour. You know - the bit of any salad or garnish everyone always picks out because newsflash, chefs: it's bloody horrible so STOP DOING IT, YOU TWATS.
These could be popular with people who drink a lot of cheap spirits I suppose, as they'll already be used to the burning gullet sensation. Them, and professional sword swallowers. But for the rest of us it's probably too much of a challenge for the palette. Which is a polite way of saying it tastes like shit.
Chocolate radish
Given how damp the radish was even after being effectively wrung out, I was slightly amazed this one had set at all. But not as amazed as I was at the taste.
 |
| This really is the radish one, but you can't see it much. Which may be just as well as you might not want people to be put off... |
Brace yourself for this: this wasn't just OK, or nice. It was really, really delicious. So delicious, I'm absolutely going to make these again if only to prove to myself it wasn't some bizarre fluke. Somehow, the radish absorbs the choccy flavour and is a nice texture (no, I'm not sure how this happens either given radishes are hard little sods) and the peppery kick goes really well with it (not a massive surprise given chilli chocolate is great, but still). And for once, there are no buts! I genuinely urge you to try making radish chocolate - it may have been entirely accidental, but bugger me - I've become a legit supermodern-style gourmet!
Olive chocolate
...for about 30 seconds, because now we're back down to earth with a bump. Specifically, a bump in the throat like you get when you're about to be sick. I knew I might be in a bit of trouble here, as this one smelled really odd. Sort of mouldy vegetation odd.
 |
| The big clue here to how it tastes is that it looks like it has chunks of snot in in. Which unless you're a toddler yet to develop a disgust reflex probably isn't a feature you like in delicious snacks. |
So how did it go down? Well, I'm not a big fan of salt in sweets at the best of times. And the fact that shoving salt into confectionary is now the lazy-arse shortcut to bunging up the price and passing it off as something special is thoroughly annoying. But I know some people (namely: idiots) like their toffee to taste a bit like it has been wiped round an empty crisp bag - and those people might just about like this. For me though, it was just a wronged-up version of something already really wrong in the first place - it tasted like a salted caramel muffin you've fished out of a bin outside a greengrocers on a hot day shortly after he's dumped all his out of date cabbages in it. A lovely chocolatey taste and then...urgh. Bogeys a la sprout.
So all in all, a mixed bag. We've had a huge triumph and a real big minger. But we're at least off and running again - and yes, I did get indigestion. Bloody raw onions.
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