Positively Radical

I’ve been buying coconut milk by the case from Amazon since the stores around here, including Trader Joe’s, only carry low-fat coconut milk. Yuck, right? The last case I ordered was Thai Kitchen Pure Coconut Milk, sold by Amazon. It was so thick it came out of the can in one solid chunk, very little liquid. In my newest order, the cans were labeled with more Marketingese: “Thai Kitchen Unsweetened Premium First Pressing Coconut Milk (95% Organic)” and the contents contained more liquid. This batch was also sold by Amazon.

The differences in textures and qualities of the various coconut milk brands and even within the brand makes it hard to get a consistent ingredient for recipes – so when you are trying to replicate a recipe that simply calls out “coconut milk” be aware that the kind of coconut milk the originator of the recipe used and the kind you buy can be quite different. I find the liquid that separates from the creamy part of coconut milk tends to have an off taste, tinny is how I would describe it, and the tinniness gets imparted into your recipe.

Anyway, enough consumer education, let’s get on with the recipe. I’ve made this a few times and I think last night’s was the best I’ve concocted so far.

Mr. PR had grabbed some fresh raspberries yesterday so as I was planning to cook dinner I thought, what could I do with those raspberries? Oh, doh! Chocolate! Chocolate mousse.

Okay, now I have to let you know before you get mad – I do not use recipes. I have lots of beautiful cookbooks I love to look at. But I don’t use recipes. I get ideas from recipes. I might follow a recipe in a kinda-sorta way. But I don’t measure out ingredients and use all the same ingredients.

Even my own concoctions are not really recipes – written-down, measured out recipes. Nope. I don’t do that. So I’m not going to give you any of those kinds of recipes here on my blog. So your results of my concoctions will vary.

Okay!  That caveat out of the way. Last night here is kinda-sorta what I did:

Open three cans of  coconut milk I described earlier. Drain out the water. I put the water aside for another use – probably something like a soup or smoothie. Put the creamy, buttery part in a mixing bowl.

Add the remainder of a container of pure, unsweetened cocoa powder.

I didn’t have enough to give it that really chocolatey taste, so I added about an equal amount of Ghirardelli double chocolate cocoa powder, sweetened. I didn’t look at the ingredients. Honestly, why do that to myself? I know the stuff is sweetened. That’s all I need to know.

Using a silicone spatula, I mixed and mixed and mixed until all the cocoa powder was blended (lots of lumps – I had to change hands a couple of times from fatigue). After the mixture was lump-free I poured it into a glass container, covered it and put it in the refrigerator. Then I licked the spatula and cleaned the bowl with my finger – then licked my finger. Can’t let that chocolatey heavenliness go to waste.

I grilled some vegetables and some salmon for dinner.  Here is how I grill the salmon – I cover this grill basket thingie with foil, and put the salmon on it and cook it on the grill uncovered. I’ve tried it covered with foil but I like the flavor and consistency of the salmon done this way. Self-experimentation y’all, that’s what it’s all about.

Use a little olive oil on the foil to prevent sticking

Then I grilled a bunch of tri-tip steaks for cutting into roast beef slices for lunches. Funny how the dog is always around when I turn on the grill. 

Don't mind me, I'm just looking at the view...

After dinner, when those tritips have cooled, I use a long, serrated knife and slice them up. Before I threw them on the grill I gave them a sprinkling of Montreal Steak Seasoning. That’s all. And I keep them quite rare because refrigerating will toughen a medium rare or medium well done beef. Tritips are pretty lean too, so to get the moist, flavorful roast beef slices, you’ll want to keep them rare. Then let them rest before slicing.

Taking a rest

Alright, enough side-tracking. Back to the mousse. After dinner was eaten and cleared and the tritips were sliced and put away and the dog got fed and given some tritip pieces and juice as a doggy jackpot, I took out the cooled mousse. The mousse firmed up into a consistency between pudding and traditional mousse. This picture is meant to give you an idea of that consistency. Hope that works for ya.

Chocolate Coconut Milk Mousse

I spooned some mousse into margarita/ice cream glasses, then loaded the glasses with the raspberries, which I had taken out of the fridge to take the edge off. (I don’t like cold fruit).

Shameless plug of my orchid-growing capabilities

Ohhhhhh! So creamy, so chocolatey! It was so rich. I mean a little too rich. I had to give some of mine to Mr. PR, my mouth just couldn’t take anymore. Next time I serve it out I’ll use less mousse and more fruit. It’s that rich. Very delicious. Very mousse-like. If someone served this to you in their home, you would not believe that this isn’t the traditional cream-and-egg mousse. It’s that good. And there’s no coconut taste at all. I’ve got to get some vanilla-flavored protein powder and try that next time to make a nice vanilla pudding. That would be awesome with fruit.