Vegetables, Grains & Other Good Stuff is celebrity chef and ethical and sustainable food champion Simon Bryant’s second cookbook – a collection of recipes in which vegetables, grains and pulses take centre-stage, rather than serving as an accompaniment.
It features 100 recipes divided by season, from comfort dishes such as pumpkin, chickpea and tahini soup to the summery flavours of fig and caramelised onion pizza with rocket.
Here, he shares his recipe for chocolate, cherry and coconut bars, creating a healthier and more sustainable sweet treat by using local dried cherries and honey.
Chocolate, cherry and coconut bars
Commercially produced versions of this chocolatey treat often contain a bunch of nasty numbers among the numerous ingredients, as well as gelatine. Fair enough, our demand for food with a long shelf-life on tap 24/7 may push manufacturers to commit all sorts of food crimes, but I say just make your own. Dark chocolate, cherry and coconut is a classic flavour combination and you will find yourself very popular around grown-ups who are still little kids inside.
For me, big, fat juicy cherries are synonymous with Christmas Day. However, once the festive rush is over some industrious growers get busy and the first farmers’ markets of the year offer some ridiculous indulgences. Cherry juice is an unmissable luxury and I always grab a couple of bottles, but if I see maraschino or glace cherries I generally back away very slowly from the vendor – they just scare me. During processing, the water content is replaced with sugar syrup and I feel it’s a culpable offence to subject the most magnificent of all stone fruits to sugar hell.
Dried cherries are a different ballgame, however. None of the tartness of the sourer varieties is lost, the tannins get pushed to a new realm and the residual sugars take on a complex caramel flavour, plus the texture becomes pleasantly chewy. If you fancy it, you can also make your own dried cherries by pitting 600 g of fresh cherries and baking them in a 170°C oven for 30–40 minutes or until they’ve lost 50 per cent of their moisture. In this recipe the dried cherries are then plumped up in verjuice, which just adds to the intensity.
Recipe and images from ‘Vegetables, Grains & Other Good Stuff’ by Simon Bryant, $39.99, Lantern.
Ingredients
¹/³ cup (80 ml) verjuice
300 g dried cherries
½ cup (125 ml) runny honey
¹/³ cup (80 g) virgin coconut oil
300 g shredded coconut
200 g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa), finely chopped
Method
Bring the verjuice to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from the heat and add the dried cherries. Cover and leave for 10–15 minutes to plump up. Stir in the honey and coconut oil, then return the pan to low heat and warm gently, stirring until smooth.
Line a 25cm × 20cm baking tray with baking paper. Transfer the cherry mixture to a food processor, add the coconut and blitz until it comes together in a ball. Transfer the mixture to the prepared tray, pressing firmly to ensure it binds. Place in the freezer for 1–2 hours. When firm, remove from the freezer and cut into 12 bars, about 10 cm × 4 cm.
To melt the chocolate, bring a saucepan of water to the boil, then remove from the heat and set a heatproof bowl on top. Place the chocolate in the bowl and leave to stand, stirring occasionally, until melted. Brush the melted chocolate over the top of the bars, coating them evenly.
Store the bars in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a month.
Makes 12
