Chocolate Chips or Cocoa Nibs&#xa0

Do you know what are chocolate chips? Do you know what are cocoa nibs? They are both considered chips. As you know, they come in many sizes, shapes and forms. Maybe you haven’t heard of the nibs either but when chopped they are an unprocessed form of chips. Unlike regular chips, these have a bitter taste.

Chocolate Chip Crusted Chicken

When asked about chips I never knew to include anything like cocoa nibs. The chocolate facts of my course awoke me to the cocoa nib. It is the cocoa bean (or the seed from the cocoa tree) after the shell is removed. The nib is very high in antioxidants. Nibs are ground into products like chocolate liqueur, cocoa butter and cocoa powder. You can purchase these already shelled in some health food stores. I received some from Ecuador with the shells on so I did the shelling by hand. It was an experience! My fingers were sore for days.

You may remember me telling you about this course before. I thought I knew all there was to know but I found some interesting things that got my attention, especially when talking about what are chocolate chips or I should say what are cocoa nibs. I could immediately envision recipes I wanted to try using these nibs like a chocolate chip cookie recipe, a breaded chicken breast recipe or a chocolate cookie recipe but I still cannot call it a “chocolate chip crusted chicken breast”.

My first try at this recipe needed improvement for two basic reasons. One the bitterness of the nibs came across too much. Second, I put too much of the crust mixture on each chicken breast to where it overwhelmed the flavor of the chicken. My next try was greatly improved. I added a little sugar to counteract the bitterness of the nibs. Instead of making one whole chicken breast, I spread the mixture more lightly and made two whole breasts. I chose sage as a flavor because the course says sage goes with chocolate and I like sage. The recipe is below.