Tag Archives: Arbequina

Oriol Balaguer, Barcelona – Chocolate Overdose Part 1

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Oriol Balaguer, Spain’s rising star pastry chef?  I’m not sure about that, as Spain is one tough market to lead, but he sure does make good chocolates!  One can only imagine the sleepless nights he and his team have trying to figure out how to decorate the damn mold for his many different flavours!

You see, he only uses 1 mold, the cocoa bean shape, and trust me, trying to come up with different decorations to make each one unique is a pain in the butt.  This was my first time tasting his stuff in Barcelona, having only had his chocolates in Japan.  At Calle Morales in Barca lies his kitchen and though he was on holiday, his chef prepared the following for me:

  1. Custom Selection of the most interesting chocolates
  2. 18 piece collection
  3. Paradigma de Chocolate – 8 Textures of Chocolate Cake

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Cake – Matcha + Vanilla + Pistachio + EVO

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Had a request from a friend for her sis-in-law’s birthday and the only rule was, do anything, but no fruits, as her bro doesn’t really eat fruits.  Bummer…..because I had some awesome PX Sherry macerated apricots in the fridge. 

Rummaged through my kitchen cupboard, fretted over it for a week or two and decided to make something a bit different and experimental.  How did I know if they tasted alright?  An extremely sophisticated testing procedure was applied to ensure all ingredients matched on a fundamental level.

Test Materials:

  1. Spoon of extra virgin olive oil
  2. Sprinkle some matcha on
  3. One vanilla pod
  4. A few whole pistachios

Instructions for Test:

  • Shove oil + matcha into mouth
  • Pop pistachios in and chew
  • Sniff on vanilla pod
  • If you do not puke, they will go well togather

Actually, some prior research was done to ensure that these ingredients all shared similar flavour components, therefore, increasing the likelihood that they would go well togather.  Its kinda like trying to understand how peanut butter and jelly are a match made in obesity heaven. However, you’ll never know how they would taste overall in balance until its done. 

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