Drawing the Chicken 14: Fudging through a Bad Week

(with a dreamy, easy, and healthy chocolate fudge recipe!)

I’ve been away so long again, and this time, it was the new H3N2 flu that stole my month. It’s “just” a cold, not as scary as the other big flu, but it still sucks the whole life out of you for a few weeks. Two weeks since I got sick, and I’m still coughing and sneezing, but also slowly recovering energy.

It felt like the right time to begin The Resilience Cookbook series on Drawing the Chicken, then, because nothing makes illness better than good food. Ever since I first had to go off of nightshades 5 years ago, and then off of all kinds of other food groups (dairy, eggs, gluten, soy, yeast, corn, to name a few!) a few months ago, I have been on a mission to make my meals more rather than less delicious even as I make them better for my body. I’m convinced that is the only way to sustainably alter one’s diet in such major ways for life — and to also take care of one’s mental health in the process. Eating meals that I actually enjoy is really important to my general sense of well-being, and since I live and eat with other family members, the goal is also to factor in their health needs — such as low cholesterol and generally heart healthy foods — while making sure we all feel our everyday quality of life is being enriched by this process of reworking our meals.

And while I’ve been creating and learning all sorts of healthy recipes, I wanted to begin with dessert— the good kind, totally delicious, ridiculously easy, and actually pretty good for you! Good quality dark chocolate is known to be good for you, and the dark chocolate I use here is made from organic cocoa, chemical free, vegan, and nutritionally dense with no refined sugar. The almond butter replacing regular cream or butter isn’t only making it vegan but is also actually really good for you and your heart. Honey is well known to be your friend, and berries are famously anti-inflammatory and full of all kinds of other goodness. And that’s it — that’s all the ingredients!

And yes, these ingredients are more expensive than the not-so-good-for-you-variety of chocolates, but a little goes a long way, especially if you buy them in bulk (and once you stop buying dessert outside— vegan and gluten free at a New Delhi bakery?!— the costs make total sense). For example, for today’s recipe, I calculated that one small (but decadent and totally satisfying) serving of this fudge costs me about Rs 25-30 in ingredients, which is of course more than most commercial chocolates for a 1.5 inch square, but for something this good for me, this delicious, and this free of preservatives? Sign me up.

Speaking of fudge, though, have you ever thought about the meanings of this funny little word? It means rich chocolate squares, sure, but there’s also the unscrupulous accountant “fudging the numbers” or the bad journalist “fudging the facts”. And then there’s the quaint old “Fudge!” where many would today use “Bullshit!”— the Oxford English Dictionary’s example is "‘You know how she despises me!’ ‘Fudge! She dotes on you!’" (I love this one!). Without going too far down an etymological rabbit hole, the thesaurus does offer these alternatives to the word: circumvent, dodge, duck, sidestep, skirt— and I’m going to create my own etymology that says the dessert-meaning of fudge comes from here:

These little squares help me circumvent/ dodge/ sidestep some of the badness of bad days, and all the more so because they sit patiently in the freezer for weeks on end, waiting for when I need cheering up but have no energy to do anything about it.

Here it is for you then. Let me know if you try these too!

Decadently Healthy Chocolate Fudge

• 175 grams dark chocolate. I use Sihi’s 70% dark chocolate because it is vegan, refined-sugar free, and absolutely delicious, but feel free to use something less intense if you don’t like your chocolate too dark. Make sure to use couverture rather than compound, though.

• 60-75 grams fresh or frozen berries. I have tried this recipe with both, smashed rasbharis (the gorgeous orange gooseberry that you get in the winters in Delhi) and with frozen raspberries from Delish — both are amazing. It should also work with any other tart fruit, although if you’re doing plums or apricots, I would probably mash and cook them into a bit of a jam first.

• 125 grams unsweetened almond butter. I use the one from The Butternut Co, but any that has only almonds listed in its ingredient list should work.

• 2 tablespoons of honey— or a different liquid sweetener if you’re vegan.

• Optional: desiccated coconut, sprinkle of sea salt, crushed walnuts, or whatever other add-ons you like for texture.

The recipe couldn’t be easier. Set some water to boil, and set a glass bowl with the dark chocolate over it to create a double burner. Use a steamer stand or something if you have one — you just have to make sure the boiling water stays below the surface of the glass bowl without touching it.

Stir the chocolate in the bowl until completely melted, then turn off the flame below. Add in the berries, honey, almond butter and any optional add ins and keep stirring until well combined.

Freeze into squares in a small silicone ice-cube tray, or into a big block in a baking pan. After 5-6 hours, once completely frozen, pop them out of the ice cube tray or slice up the big block into bite sized pieces (I do about 1.5 inch squares).

Wrap each individual square tightly in parchment paper or foil — this is important to prevent freezer burn — then place all of them into a freezer safe container. And voila, in just about 15-20 minutes of active work, you have dessert for a couple of weeks (or at least a few days if you’re less disciplined!)