Afternoon Chocolate Delight Recipe for the Catalan Treat Pa Xocolata Oli i Sal

This afternoon chocolate delight recipe made with bread, chocolate, olive oil and salt – pa, xocolata, oli i sal in Catalan – comes courtesy of one of Barcelona’s best chefs, Jordi Artal. It was a traditional Catalan after-school treat that his grandmother made him, which inspired one of the creative contemporary desserts that chef Jordi serves at his restaurant, Cinc Sentits.

One of our most memorable dining experiences last year was a degustation meal at Cinc Sentits, the restaurant of Michelin starred chef Jordi Artal, a Catalan-Canadian chef who returned to his ancestral home of Barcelona.

Not only is Jordi one of Spain‘s finest culinary talents, he has achieved success without formal kitchen training. The guy has talent to burn and in a story on Barcelona in the The New York Times, his restaurant was their fine dining restaurant of choice.

This afternoon chocolate delight recipe makes a traditional Catalan after-school snack of bread, chocolate, olive oil and salt – pa, xocolata, oli i sal in Catalan – which his grandmother used to make him. We fell in love with a creative Cinc Sentits dessert that was inspired by the Catalan treat, and asked Jordi to share the recipe.

Afternoon Chocolate Delight Recipe for the Traditional Catalan Treat of Pa, Xocolata, Oli i Sal

While Jordi Artal’s food is very creative, it’s not form over flavour or a whacky combination of ingredients with some ‘foam’ on top to give it an avant-garde touch.

With the more complex version of Jordi’s grandma’s afternoon chocolate delight that the chef serves as a dessert in the restaurant, he places roasted macadamias* on the bottom of a dessert dish, adds a layer of the most decadent chocolate ‘mousse’ we’ve ever tasted, followed by a generous sprinkle of bread crumbs made from the Coca de vidra, and finally, a quenelle of delicious olive oil ice cream. It’s creative contemporary Catalan cuisine in a nutshell.

As we’d quickly learn, each of Jordi’s dishes is informed by his traditional Catalan roots and incorporates Catalan-sourced ingredients* — something that you’ll see in this afternoon chocolate delight recipe – but is rethought using the chef’s arsenal of contemporary techniques. *The macadamias, native to Australia, are a rare exception.

Jordi admits to agonising over the creation of a menu, taking care not to repeat ingredients, ensuring every dish works together, thinking about wine pairing, and keeping his food costs manageable. He cares so much that he even refuses to serve the same kind of ingredient twice in a tasting menu.

We spent some time talking to Jordi after our first meal at the restaurant last summer in Barcelona when the friendly sommelier offered to introduce us to him. Jordi sat down with us after lunch – usually his break before yet another packed dinner at his small restaurant – and answered our endless questions about his food and the Barcelona dining scene.

Naturally, Jordi was the first chef I thought of consulting for my series on The Dish when we knew we were returning to Barcelona and needed a suggestion for a quintessential dish from the Catalan capital.

When we approached Jordi to teach me how to make a dish that in some way represented the new wave of creative Catalan cooking in Barcelona, Jordi took a u-turn.

Jordi told us that the basis for a lot of his thinking behind dishes is that people don’t want to go to a fine dining restaurant to eat something they could make at home, a notion that I wholeheartedly share.

Yet at the same time, many of the dishes Jordi creates are based upon just that – dishes he has grown up eating in the family home.

Instead of teaching me a contemporary dish that would be complicated and difficult to make, Jordi suggested showing me how to make this traditional Catalan “afternoon chocolate delight”.

It’s a sweet snack that Jordi says his grandmother used to make for him after school as a treat (“if he was a good boy”), that he has recreated into one of the most sublime desserts we’ve ever tasted.

The ingredients? Bread, chocolate, olive oil and salt – pa, xocolata, oli i sal in Catalan. Simple as that.

Rather than deconstructing Catalan dishes, Jordi says “I like to think that we are ‘reconstructing’ them, generally by using the ingredients and/or methods of a particular recipe to rebuild the dish into something new.”

For instance, Jordi might replace a few ingredients with similar or higher quality ingredients and present the dish in a very different way, as he’s done with this after school snack that he transformed into a heavenly dessert.

“If you look at the dish we serve it may not look anything like the traditional Catalan dish – but it certainly tastes like it!” he assures us, “In a way, what we’re doing here is creating odes to Catalan cuisine.”

Tips to Making Jordi Artal’s ‘Afternoon Chocolate Delight’ Recipe for Pa, Xocolata, Oli i Sal

Jordi Artal’s ‘afternoon chocolate delight’ recipe for the Catalan snack ‘Pa, Xocolata, Oli i Sal’ barely needs a recipe, but the chef had a couple of tips:

Use the Best Quality Ingredients

While Jordi’s grandma used whatever bread and olive oil was available in her kitchen, for Jordi’s recipe only the finest quality ingredients will do. The chef said this is especially important when it comes to the salt, olive oil and chocolate.

In Barcelona you’ll see salt and olive oil used with chocolate a lot in fine dining restaurants and you can also buy olive oil chocolate at Barcelona’s many artisanal chocolate shops.

The Only Sweetness Should Come from the Chocolate

We initially wondered why Jordi didn’t use a sweeter bread, as the form that we first tasted this snack in was a dessert.

But the chef said that the bread is really just there as a vessel for the chocolate and olive oil so you want a good quality plain bread, such as a rustic sourdough.

Afternoon Chocolate Delight Recipe for Pa, Xocolata, Oli i Sal

Afternoon Chocolate Delight Recipe for Pa, Xocolata, Oli i Sal

AuthorJordi Artal of Cinc Sentits, Barcelona

Michelin-starred chef Jordi Artal's afternoon chocolate delight recipe makes a traditional Catalan treat reinterpreted at his Barcelona restaurant Cinc Sentits. This recipe makes the sweet and savoury snack his grandmother made him after school of bread, chocolate, olive oil and salt, pa, xocolata, oli i sal in Catalan.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Spanish

Servings made with recipeServings 1

Calories 670 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• Coca de vidre or ‘glass’ bread - a chewy, airy loaf of bread
• Cooking chocolate — Jordi used Valrhona - most chefs’ favourite cooking chocolate
• Olive oil — Jordi used Oleum Flumen de Finca - Mas Mariet
• Flor de Sal — this is our favourite brand of sea salt as well - our friend Marc Fosh, one of Mallorca’s finest chefs, helped start Flor de Sal and distributes it from his gorgeous store in Palma de Mallorca

Instructions

 

• Chop up the bread into thick slices.
• Pop the bread under a griller for a minute or two until warm.
• Place a few chocolate pieces on each slice of bread and pop the bread under the griller again until the chocolate melts. You don’t want the chocolate to melt completely into a liquid though — you want it to be soft but not runny.
• Douse the chocolate liberally with the olive oil.
• Sprinkle some grains of Flor de Sal on top.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 670kcalCarbohydrates: 97.2gProtein: 17gFat: 28.3gSaturated Fat: 10.6gCholesterol: 2mgSodium: 1002mgFiber: 6.1gSugar: 24.3g