I wanted to get this holdout from summer posted before memories of summer completely fade away. I’m suddenly craving fresh berries – yum!
White Chocolate Mousse with Strawberries
recipe courtesy Williams-Sonoma
2 cups strawberries, stems removed
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs. kirsch or framboise
6 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup milk, warmed
1 cup heavy cream
2 egg whites, at room temperature
Pinch of cream of tartar
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
In a blender or in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine 1 1/2 cups of the strawberries with the sugar. Puree until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Add the kirsch and stir to mix. Cut the remaining 1/2 cup strawberries lengthwise into thin slices and stir into the puree. Set aside.
Place the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over but not touching gently simmering water in a saucepan. Heat the chocolate, stirring occasionally, until it is melted and smooth and registers 140°F on an instant-read thermometer. Gradually add the warm milk to the chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove the bowl from the pan of water and let the mixture cool until it is almost at room temperature.
In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the cream on high speed just until soft peaks form. In another bowl, using clean beaters, beat together the egg whites and cream of tartar on high speed until stiff peaks form. Using a rubber spatula, fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold the remaining whites, the whipped cream and vanilla into the chocolate mixture just until combined and no white drifts remain. Do not overmix. (At this point, you may cover and refrigerate the mousse for up to 1 day.)
To serve, spoon about half of the mousse into 6 parfait glasses, half filling each glass. Top with the strawberry sauce, again using about half and dividing it equally. Repeat with the remaining mousse and strawberry sauce. Serves 6.
Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Seasonal Celebration Series, Spring, by Joanne Weir (Time-Life Books, 1997).
Television Review
The Independent (London, England) January 26, 2001 | Robert Hanks EVEN IF The 1940s House (C4) had not told us anything about life during wartime, it would have been fascinating for what it told us about life today: how, under the froth and bubble of our pampered lives, there is a search for an “authentic” sense of the past. The Hymers family’s three-month ordeal by ration book was a product of the sort of curiosity and anxiety that led to the Early Music Movement, with its catgut violins and shockingly brisk tempos.
As it happened, The 1940s House did tell us a lot about that period, if not always the things it wanted to tell us. Last night’s post-mortem on the experiment included a fascinating sequence in which the “war cabinet”, the team of historians assembled to oversee the house, expressed their disappointment in the Hymers. It wasn’t just that they had cheated on their ration books (Kirstie stole buns from a whist drive; meanwhile, her mother, Lyn, bummed cigarettes off everybody she met – you got the impression that if there had been any GIs around, she would have been in there). No, the real problem was that they hadn’t tried hard enough. They hadn’t improvised any cleaning materials out of paraffin and vinegar, hadn’t grown any food worth speaking of, hadn’t built their Anderson shelter to spec. go to site art of war quotes
The Hymers met the charges with indignation towards those “bastards”, those “faceless bureaucrats” handing down the orders. Michael defended his shelter-building robustly; the instructions had said that if the entrance to the shelter was close enough to the house, there was no need for earthworks to protect against a bomb blast.
But the defence seemed to miss the point: that in wartime, people don’t always try as hard as they should, don’t all get the Dunkirk spirit. Angus Calder’s book, The People’s War quotes Mass Observation’s finding that about a third of people bothered to read all the government pamphlets they were sent. As one of the war cabinet admitted, rationing helped crime and the black market to flourish. So, in bending the regulations, the Hymers were closer to the wartime mentality than they would have been if they stuck to them. A further irony: the war cabinet was itself getting sucked into the experiment, taking on the role of wartime civil servants, disappointed by people’s inability to live within the bounds they set them. go to site art of war quotes
Not that the programme reproduced the conditions of war perfectly. The physical experience was replicated with surprising accuracy, but the psychological facts proved to be elusive. On the one hand, there was no way for the Hymers to suffer the uncertainty or long-term tedium of war; on the other, they could not enjoy the sense of community, of burdens and jokes shared. What the programme did have to say about the psychology of the period was inadequate. It was stated that the strains of life on the Home Front led to a number of suicides. In fact – Calder again – the suicide rate fell quite dramatically.
As history this was largely bunk, then. But as family drama it was funny and touching, with the Hymers becoming a calmer, happier bunch as they coped with privation. Now, please, can we leave the war alone for a bit?
Robert Hanks
November 17th, 2008 at 9:30 am
What a refreshing post. Seems to me the Chocolate Mousse with those blazing red strawberries have a touch of the holidays within and a glimpse of spring to come. Thanks for sharing…
February 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Dark chocolate is produced by adding fat and sugar to cacao. It is chocolate without milk as an additive. It is sometimes called "plain chocolate". The U.S.
Government has no definition for dark chocolate, only "sweet chocolate", which requires a 15% concentration of chocolate liquor. Sweet chocolate is not
necessarily dark chocolate as there is no restriction of milk in it. European rules specify a minimum of 35% cocoa solids