By Steven Saunders • Published: 22 Mar 2019 • 10:23
CHOCOLATE FACTORY: With the man I call Willy Wonker.
This week Celebrity Chef from Ready Steady Cook & Fellow Master Chef Steven Saunders, proprietor of The Little Geranium in La Cala cooks a meat dish using chocolate from a local chocolate factory in Mijas.
Everybody loves chocolate and when I first introduced chocolate into a savoury dish on my menus some 20 years ago people were surprised and looked upon it as a bit weird.
The guy in the hat has chocolate sauce on his meat, they would say! But cocoa or chocolate has been used for hundreds of years for savoury dishes especially in Mexico where their national dish Mole (pronounced Mol-Lay) was created early 1800’s using chocolate to soften, thicken and flavour the sauce.
I have often included a little bit of high cocoa chocolate with low sugar into a sauce to go with venison or game and clients love the texture and depth of flavour that it adds to a reduced meat stock making it super smooth. Recently one of my clients was raving about my venison dish served with chocolate jus at The Geranium and as I was discussing it with him, I realised who he was.
It was the man I call Willy Wonker from Mayan Monkey Mijas in Mijas pueblo, Jason Godwin. Come and see me at the factory in Mijas, Jason said. We went the following week and when we arrived in Mijas pueblo it was easy to find in the main square of this lovely little pueblo. Jason greeted us and showed us around his factory with gushing enthusiasm for his chocolate sourced by using ethical means.
In other words, ethical chocolate does not use child slaves to harvest the beans and the cocoa farms are sustainable usually from places like Peru and Venezuela. We don’t buy from the Ivory coast he said with pride, it costs a lot more this way, but we don’t care it is nice to sleep at night knowing that we are creating jobs rather than helping to create child slavery!
Children from local schools queued for the express workshop experience where they get to take a tour and then make their own chocolate bars and take them home afterwards, although other workshops are available like the wine tasting with chocolate workshop, which appeals to me!
Jason showed us how the cocoa bean grinder worked and how to make chocolate from the bean to the bar so to speak. Mayan Monkey also make ice cream using organic milk, cream and chocolate of course! What’s really fantastic about Jason and his wife Eli is their dedication to quality and to education. Jason is always enthusiastically explaining to guests how the cocoa grinder or the roaster works or showing clients how they make the packaging using the historic Heidelberg printing press (Heidi) from the late1800’s.
It’s a fantastic experience, an education and a great day out. Enjoy coffee at their cafés after the tour and there are loads of traditional tapas restaurants in Mijas. A real treat for the kids!
I recall when my girls were young, we had a chocolate truffle thief in the Pink Geranium restaurant. Rod Stewart loves chocolate and had been in the night before and stayed late drinking, talking about football and we were missing a whole tray of chocolate truffles afterwards (about 60 pieces).
Staff commented on how awful it was that someone of his status would do that and they were discussing it. As they discussed, I could see the face of my five-year-old daughter Serena was bright red. Serena did you take the truffles? I asked. I didn’t steal them dad, she said, I just borrowed them. So, when are you planning to return them? I asked her. When you show me how to make them, she said crying. I did show her a few years later, but I am still waiting for them to be returned!
Making restaurant style Venison Jus
Ingredients
Method
Ingredients for 2
Follow Steven on Instagram: saunderschef
Email any questions to steven@thelittlegeranium.com
The Little Geranium, Winner of Best Contemporary International Restaurant 2019-Costa Del Sol
www.thelittlegeranium.com
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Steven Saunders FMCGB - The Little Geranium - La Cala de Mijas & Marbella
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