Recipe: Homemade Chocolate Nougat

Chef Sabyasachi Gorai's Chocolate Nougat is a smart way to use up leftover pancakes.

Quite unlike the classic white or dark candy bar covered in peanuts, this dessert combines chocolate with crunchy walnuts.  

Chef Sabya, as he is called, is admired by the chef fraternity for his quick rise in the world of cooking. Chef Sanjeev Kapoor is glowing and poetic in his praise and says he is 'the chef who pours his heart into the cauldron and blends it in with the ingredients to present a work of art on your plate -- over and over, every time'.

Homemade Nougat with Chocolate and Walnuts 

Servings: 1

Ingredients

• 2 100 gm milk chocolate bars
• 3 pancakes (please see the Editor's Note below)
• Handful walnuts
• ½ cup walnut butter (please see the recipe below)
• Whole walnut pieces, for garnish

For the walnut butter

• 2 cups walnuts
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• Pinch salt

Method

For the walnut butter

• Preheat an oven to 150°C.
• Toast the walnuts on a baking sheet for 10 minutes.
  Cool.
  Transfer to a food processor.
  Blend till a thick paste.
  Add the vegetable oil and the salt.
  Process again until smooth.
  Keep aside.

 For the nougat

• Chop the rice pancakes and walnuts into small pieces and keep aside.
• Melt the chocolate carefully in a bowl in a microwave or in a double boiler.
  Add the chopped pancakes and walnuts to the melted chocolate.
  Add the walnut butter.
  Mix well.
  Transfer into a rectangular container lined with parchment paper.
  Or use an unlined silicone container.
• Let the nougat solidify in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
  Slice and serve garnished with whole walnut pieces.

Editor's Note: Please check out Chef Sabya's pancake recipe here.

While using this recipe, skip the bananas and replace the maida or all-purpose flour with gluten-free rice flour.
For vegan chocolate nougat, use vegan dark chocolate and make the rice flour pancakes without eggs like you would a dosa and with cashew butter instead of regular butter.
To reduce the sugar in this dessert, opt for 70 per cent dark chocolate and use stevia powder in the pancakes. Each brand of stevia has its own stevia for sugar substitution ratio provided on its packing.

Chef Sabyasachi Gorai is a consultant chef and mentor.

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