Easy Cooking Recipes: Chocolate Mousse

Well, I'm lazy, tired, nursing a hangover, (and a bottle of Remy, of course), but I want to feel like I did something productive on my day off. So, without getting out of bed, I have gone back to the beginning to revive what started it all; an email I sent to my sister while I was in culinary school in New Zealand, sometime in early 2004, I was likely drinking a large cup of black tea, or perhaps a shitty New Zealand beer, as I was accustomed to at the time. After five years of encouragement and thought of writing a cookbook in this voice, I'm just now getting ambitious enough to copy this directly from the email. I'll be kind to you, though, and I will translate the recipe from the metric system into the much more familiar yet confusing US measurements. If you do have a scale, or are on good enough terms with your weed dealer down the hall to borrow one, just hit that button until you get to grams, brush off the green crumbs, and get down to business.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE:
cooking time hands on: 15 minutes
total time: 1 hour 15 minutes
acceptable drunkenness: buzzed
Yield: a few servings
750ml (a fifth) Remy Martin VSOP (can be substituted for XO or upgraded as budget allows)
to taste Beer or Wine
80 grams (2.8oz) Chocolate
120ml (1/2 cup) Heavy Whipping Cream
1 (1) Egg - separated
1T Sugar
2T Rum, Brandy, Gran Marnier, or Remy Martin, (if you want to waste it.)

Now, to demystify the separation of an egg. It does not mean that the egg is getting divorced but the papers haven't gone through yet. Here's the only way I ever separate an egg: 1)wash your hands 2)grab two bowls, for this application, I'd recommend cereal bowls 3)crack the egg on the side of one bowl and, discarding the shell, drop the entire egg into one hand, held over the bowl 4) spread your fingers slightly to allow the egg white to slip through into the bowl 5)transfer the yolk from hand to hand as the white slips away, pinching your fingers together as necessary to aid the separation 6)drop the clean yolk into the other bowl 7)wash your hands 8)have a drink, contemplate abortion.
Now, onto the email.
I made a mean chocolate mousse in school, did Mom tell you? I'll see if I can walk you through it, but there's a lot of ways you can fuck it up.
First, you need a double boiler (a pot of simmering water with a metal bowl over it, not touching the water but being warmed by the steam) put 80 grams of chocolate to melt in it. The better quality of chocolate, the better quality of mousse. You're going to want this fully melted, but not too hot. The temperature where you could keep your finger in it without the slightest discomfort, but warm enough to make you want to take your finger out and put it in your mouth and let the warm chocolate curl around your tongue. (I've heard some people find this pleasant.) But don't worry about the temp, yet, because it must be at the proper temp in five minutes, not now, so just melt it and turn off the heat. Take 120ml of cream, fresher cream works better, not too close to the best used by date. Whisk the shit out of it until you have soft peaks, not stiff like cool whip, though. In another bowl whisk one egg yolk with a tablespoon of sugar. Whisk the shit out of this, too, in fact you should whisk this before the cream cause it won't fall as much. Whisk it until the color has gone to a paler yellow than when started. Take another bowl and whisk the shit out of an egg white (You can use the white out of the same egg you took the yolk from, a little chef's trick.) Beat the white until you can hold the bowl upside down over your head and not dirty yourself. Seriously, do it. Now, feel your chocolate, put a little more in to make up for what you've been eating, get a good temp. Whisk the yolk and cream together, getting the cream a little stiffer, but still not cool whip. Toss the whisk in the sink and grab your spatula, pour in a little of the rum you've been sipping, or the brandy if you're on to that now. Take your finger out of the chocolate and put the spatula into it, scraping it into the cream/yolk/sugar deal. Mix it quickly to get it even and equalize the heat of the new mixture a quickly as possible. Now you have to choose whether you want to mix this with the egg white or the egg white with this. Make your decision quickly, spatulaing one into the other. Mix them gently, as if you were powdering a baby's bottom with the spatula, make it all one color, not marbled, unless you are mad at me and don't care what I say, even though I took the time to give you this step by step narrative with no personal gain whatsoever. Just cover it and put it in the fridge and wait for an hour, at least. Don't eat it all now, go get stoned and forget you made it until you open your fridge for your tea and are pleasantly surprised to find the most exquisite desert you have ever created with your own two hands.

Put more whipped cream on top, berries, any number of dessert sauces I don't feel like telling you how to make, or just buy one. Or take some jam and boil it with water, that's easy enough, just make sure you let it cool before you put it on your mousse. Make a double batch, a triple batch, whatever you need, don't worry, the main way you'll fuck this one up is getting your chocolate too hot or too cold. Too hot, you'll scramble your eggs. Too cold, no biggie, your chocolate will seize up too quickly and now you have a chunky, chocolate chip mousse, just like you meant to do it. Cheers, enjoy.
Until next time,
The Drunk Chef