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Cacao Nibs
Cacao Nibs from Pam and Bob Cooper’s
“Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory,”
grown on the Big Island of Hawaii
4-oz package, $10.
The seeds of the chocolate tree, called cacao nibs once they've been fermented, dried, roasted and peeled, are not merely delicious. |
They also possess remarkable nutritional benefits, including an abundance of trace minerals, the most beneficial of all vegetable oils, and the highest concentration of antioxidants of any food we eat.
As we demonstrate on our Steelgrass Chocolate Farm Tour, making chocolate candy from scratch in your home kitchen is easy and fun, as well as being an ideal rainy-day project if you have kids in your universe. (The process is also described on a wonderful internet site, www.chocolatealchemy.com.)
Given the health benefits of cacao nibs, however, many cooks are dispensing with the sugar altogether, and using cacao nibs as an ingredient in savory main dishes. Our family's favorite recipes for Spicy Cacao Shrimp, Cacao Nibs Parfait, and Romaine Lettuce & Citrus Cacao Nib Salad can be found on our website: visit the "Chocolate Farm Tours" page and click on "The Story of Steelgrass Chocolate" at the bottom of that page. You can find more recipes for both savory and sweet dishes by clicking on "Chocolate Books and Websites" in the same location.
Our goal at Steelgrass Farm is to create a chocolate industry here on Kauai, and to do that, the first thing we need is trees in the ground. As a result, rather than making chocolate, at present our Farm is making chocolate trees instead. All of the seeds from the cacao pods you see on our trees go down to our nursery to be germinated, and we distribute the resulting young trees to other farms on Kauai. We're proud that over 1,500 of our cacao seedlings have found new homes on the island during the past year.
At the same time, we want you to share in the enjoyment of discovering how delicious cacao can be as an ingredient in savory main dishes, not just chocolate candy. As so many home cooks are discovering, using chocolate this way adds delicious new flavor twists to your cooking, while at the same time giving your family one of the healthiest foods known to humankind.
Producing nibs from our own trees would interrupt our seedling production program, so we turned to our friends and mentors Pam and Bob Cooper of the Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory, in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii (www.originalhawaiianchocolatefactory.com.) The Coopers kindly agreed to share with us their own organic cacao nibs, grown and processed right here in Hawaii.
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