WHIPPED MEXICAN-STYLE HOT CHOCOLATE WITH CINNAMON AND ALMONDS

Oaxaca, Mexico. I was sitting cross-legged on the ground in pale February sunshine watching 60-year-old Genoveva Martinez make chocolate the way her ancestors did. She knelt on a mat in front of a rectangular stone slab, a metate, and a flame sat underneath to keep it warm. Genoveva placed sticks of cinnamon and freshly roasted and peeled cacao beans on the metate and began grinding them with a long stone, her strong arms moving rhythmically and rapidly, the firm action of her wrists crushing the ingredients to a powder. She added more beans and continued grinding, until I noticed the powder give up its oil and transform into a paste the colour and sheen of a chestnut pony. Genoveva added sugar and ground walnuts to the slab and kept the action going, putting her back into her work and scraping down the metate now and again with a knife until the mixture released a heavenly scent. “It’s ready when I can see my reflection; it shines like a mirror,” Genoveva said. And suddenly the mixture was so much more than the sum of its parts: chocolate.

This laborious process has always been woven into the fabric of Genoveva’s life. As a small child she would take it in turns with her sister to climb onto the backs of her mother’s legs as she made chocolate this way, to enjoy the ride. As a young woman, Genoveva’s suitability for being a wife was judged by her skills at the metate. “A girl couldn’t marry until she learned to make chocolate,” she said.

This is my version of Genoveva’s hot chocolate. The mix keeps well in a sealed jar inside a cool cupboard.

MAKES ENOUGH FOR 6 CUPS

140g / 5oz dark chocolate (around 70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 heaped tsp flaked [slivered] almonds

2½ Tbsp soft light brown sugar

good pinch of sea salt flakes

TO SERVE

whole milk

chilli flakes

Place all the ingredients for the chocolate mix in a food processor and blitz to a fine rubble––don’t overdo it, or the chocolate will melt and turn into a paste.

Heat the milk in a pan almost to boiling point, then remove from the heat and add 3 tablespoons for each 250ml/8½fl oz of milk used. Whisk or beat to a lovely froth. Serve with a pinch of chilli flakes on top.