Les Poissonchats

Mendiants, say beggars on a silver tray. In fact, they are sinfully delicious and I would say capitally healthy too because they contain nuts and fruit. A corker in short.  

I made these well in advance for the weekend, as we are planning a micro-feast with neighbours. Nothing fancy, a little potage and then a saumonette feuilletée (recipe here) and apple cake with cream (recipe here) for dessert. And the mendiants for coffee, we may be deep into dreary January but lent still is over two weeks ahead. 

Mendiants are super easy to make, it’s chocolate and then whatever takes your fancy, nuts, raisins, dried berries. Candied fruit. The choices are infinite. I took hazelnuts as I still have a big basket from the tree in our garden and walnuts that we gathered in the woods during our autumn walks. Took me quite some time to crack them all but I guess that’s what people call slow food, right. I have used up all my dried raisins, so I took cranberries, which is delicious too. Here is how it goes: 

What you’ll need

• 200g of good quality dark chocolate
• A handful of roughly chopped hazelnuts
• A handful of roughly chopped walnuts
• A handful of dried berries or rasins
• The tiniest whiff of fleur de sea

How to make them

Take a large flat cool tray and lay out with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie (which is a pot in a pot of water). Then take a wooden spoon and scoop little portions on your tray, say, nutshell sized. Depending on the chocolate you take, they will run into flat disks, otherwise, with the help of the back of your spoon, flatten with circular movements in order to obtain thin round oblates. Add some nuts and berries on top and sprinkle with really the tiniest whiff of fleur de sel and set aside in a cool spot to get firm. 

How to eat them

After a nice little meal, along a nice little cup of coffee.