Gianduja Soup

It’s taken me two years to share this recipe with you.

I first had this cold soup on my birthday two Novembers ago at La Cantine du Troquet after a meal of steak frites. With every spoonful, my eyes lit up and I was so ecstatic about having my favourite flavours of chocolate and hazelnuts come together in a soup (or a milkshake?). It was topped with some candied pecans for a caramel-y crunch. I had to come back home and replicate it.

Soon after, I scooted over to G. Detou to buy a kilo of Valrhona Gianduja chocolate to make my version of the Gianduja chocolate soup. Or so I’d hoped – because what happened instead was that I nibbled through the entire kilo of the chocolate slab that was sitting in my fridge door over a few weeks. (I still can’t believe I did that.)

When we were moving to London, I stocked up on food, ingredients and equipment as if I were being banished to another planet. Kilos and kilos of different types of Valrhona chocolate, multiple madeleine pans, hazelnut from Piedmont, fleur de sel, chestnut flour, herbes de Provence, Tahitian vanilla, honey and jam. A few nights ago, I made steak frites for dinner and Arjun reminisced about the Gianduja soup. Reaching for my (new) half eaten slab of Valrhona Gianduja in my secret stash, I decided to make the soup before it was too late. 

For the Gianduja soup, I used creme anglaise as a base. While the creme anglaise was still hot, I poured it over a combination of chopped up chunks of gianduja milk chocolate, Valrhona Manjari dark chocolate and Valrhona praline paste and whizzed it with an immersion blender. It’s all very simple, very straightforward. You just need to be sure to make the creme anglaise correctly – start with measuring out all the ingredients and having them close at hand. Use a heavy bottomed pan and silicone spatula. And if you’d like it to be even thicker, use a mixture of half milk and half cream.

Gianduja Soup

1 vanilla bean
360g whole milk
90g egg yolks
60g caster sugar
50g gianduja chocolate
50g praline paste
50g dark chocolate (54-70%)
10-12 pecans, lightly toasted
Approximately 3 tablespoons of sugar

1. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, bring the vanilla bean, half the sugar and milk to a boil.
2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together, until it is light and frothy. Once the milk has come to a boil, pour a third of it over the egg yolks, whisking constantly with the other hand so as to distribute the heat evenly without cooking the egg yolks.
3. Pour all egg mixture back into the saucepan and cook gently, stirring with a silicone spatula, making sure to scrape all corners and sides at regular intervals. Cook until the milk has thickened and coats the back of a spoon. Do not bring it to a boil.
4. In another bowl, put the gianduja chocolate, praline paste and dark chocolate together. Pour the hot creme anglaise over it. Whisk to melt the chocolate then use an immersion blender to make it absolutely homogenous. Refrigerate for a few hours until completely chilled.
5. For the caramelised pecans, heat the sugar in pan. Just when it begins to melt down, add the pecans, stir to coat and cook until it’s a dark amber caramel colour.
6. Pour the chilled gianduja soup into a bowl, top with the camarelised pecans. Serve.