for the 7th treat of Christmas, Valerie (again) gave to us: Chocolate Salami

Chocolate Salami - It’s just a little bit of fun!

There is no raw meat and no baking involved. It’s a fairly simple recipe and I’m sure you would have tried something similar at one or other stage of your life. The only difference is the novel serving suggestion and then the name of course. A few years ago my boss brought chocolate salami back from Portugal. I thought it was wonderful, very clever and something I had not seen before. The flavour and ingredients reminded me of a treat that my mum used to make for me when I was a child. So I thought why not use that old recipe and give it a gentle face-lift.

ingredients: 1/3 c. unsalted butter

200g bitter chocolate, 70%

100g icing sugar

200g digestive biscuits

80g flaked almonds

80g dried cranberries

80g pistachios

2 egg yolks

2ml vanilla essence

80g Condensed milk

Pinch of salt

Cocoa powder

Instructions: Preparing your mixture

1. Break digestive biscuits in into large bowl and sprinkle and set aside.
2. Melt chocolate in microwave or medium bowl, do not let chocolate over heat. If you test the melted chocolate with your finger it should just be warm to the touch. If too hot let cool until warm to the touch. If chocolate is too hot when adding following ingredients, egg yokes could cook producing something resembling chocolate scrambled eggs. So make certain chocolate is melted but just warm to the touch before moving to step 2.
3. When chocolate has melted, add butter, sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, and stir well to incorporate. Mixture will start to thicken into a dough like consistency and pull away from bowl.
4. Add chocolate mixture to broken cookies.
5. Add vanilla, salt, and 1/2 of almonds and pistachios. Mix well until incorporated.
   

Instructions: Molding the Salami

1. Lay out a long sheet of wax paper of 28in/70cm length.
2. Roll the mixture onto the wax paper and shape into a salami shape length wise to the paper.
3. Mixture will be manageable by hand, now you can mold salami to the desired length and thickness. The length and thickness depends on taste, I would suggest somewhere between 7-10cm/3-4in - in diameter. This will enable nice size slices of approximately 3cm/1in, in thickness when done.
4. Sprinkle remaining almonds around salami and spread out as evenly as possible.
5. Bring salami to one side of paper and start to roll paper around log gently but firmly, once completely rolled, twist ends and refrigerate flat for at least 2 hours.
6. Take salami out of refrigerator 20min before cutting and serving. Note: Salami will be very firm when cutting slices, so its best to take it out of the refrigerator 20min before serving to facilitate cutting. Entire salami can be cut into slices and refrigerated to make it easier to serve later. Or if entertaining, salami can be presented whole and guests can cut their own slices, just like a real salami.