Healthy Cold-Weather Cocoa: Val’s Mayan Hot Chocolate

On the way back from my Polynesian vacation extravaganza, I had a stopover in LA, where I got to spend an incredible 36 hours with my friend Val. There’s something so comforting about unfettered time with a person you hold very close. The minutes slow down, your thoughts clear, and suddenly you feel like you can breathe a little easier. Val and I did absolutely nothing noteworthy. And yet I left wishing I had even just a few more hours.

Something I’ve always loved in Val’s kitchen is a handwritten recipe book she’s been building since our freshman year of college. Flipping through the pages, it’s amazing to see so much of her history unfold. Having shared a lot of those memories with her–either in the moment or later–I get goosebumps.

One of my all-time favorites is her Mayan hot chocolate recipe, something she first tested with our friend Steph, who’d spent countless amounts of time excavating Mayan ruins in Honduras and Guatemala. Steph repeatedly told us both about the delicious not-sweet hot chocolate she drank there, and one day she and Val found their own recipe. Since then, Val’s been tweaking and perfecting it–and each visit, I’m amazed to report, it gets a little better.

Vanilla bean is one of the key ingredients here–and it happens to be what I brought back from Tahiti in spades (Tahitian vanilla has many more seeds than other variants, it’s more potent and prized). So, of course, in 70 degree magnificent LA weather, Val and I had absolutely no choice but to hole up by a crackling fire and start melting chocolate. I couldn’t have had a better day.

Not only does the recipe work great with skim milk, the spices and flavors perform so well, there’s no need for added sugar. Moreover, if you use dark chocolate with 70 percent cocoa or higher, you’re getting a huge dose of polyphenols–which help to keep your blood sugar and metabolism in check, and have also been shown to have a dopamine-like effect on your mood and an aspirin-like influence on your heart health. On that note, here’s the recipe (which I’m especially craving on this crisp fall day).

Val’s Mayan Hot Chocolate

Ingredients
-1 fresh jalapeno pepper, cut in half, seeds removed
-2 cups water
-4 cups skim milk
-1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
-1-2 cinnamon sticks
-2 whole nutmegs, cut in quarters
-5 allspice berries
-8 oz bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

Preparation
Put jalanpeno and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Allow
it to boil until liquid has reduced to about 3/4 cup (about 15 to 20
minutes). Remove chilies and any stray seeds. In a medium saucepan,
combine milk, vanilla bean, cinnamon, and nutmeg and cook over medium
heat until bubbles appear around edge of pan. Reduce heat to low and
add chocolate, whisking occasionally until it’s melted (about 5 min).
Turn off heat and remove vanilla bean and cinnamon stick. Add jalapeno
water a little at a time, until desired flavor and heat is reached.