Bittersweet

At my house, it is important to have a really good chocolate sauce recipe available in case of emergency. Even if your house doesn't have emergencies of this nature, you can still use this recipe. Good chocolate sauce and a little good vanilla ice cream make a dessert more delicious and satisfying than 90 percent of those you could order in even a top-flight restaurant. Good chocolate sauce and an assortment of ripe fruits and chunks of cake will get you chocolate fondue. And when things look bleak, good chocolate sauce and a spoon will make you smile.

The recipe that follows immediately is one I have used for at least a dozen years. It is flexible and contains some interesting lessons about flavor, perhaps about life.

There is a simple secret to good chocolate sauce: You need good chocolate. Don't buy the individually wrapped squares of chocolate at the supermarket. Buy chocolate you love to eat because the sauce is mostly chocolate and you are going to eat it. A recipe like this shows off all of the qualities, good or bad, of the chocolate you use. The many options and imprecise measurements in this recipe may suggest either that I can't make up my mind or that I don't think the details really matter. Neither is true. I know what I like, and every detail is important.

But what do you like? Depending on the choices you make, you can have a sauce that is rich and creamy or intensely bittersweet, or anything in between. You can have a thin sauce that mingles pleasantly with the melted ice cream in the bottom of the bowl, or one that thickens like fudge and makes you groan a little with pleasure. You can make the sauce with a standard semisweet chocolate or a powerful 70 percent bittersweet--it all depends on your tastes.

Once you've selected your chocolate, you are ready to consider the milk versus cream question. Milk is the more convenient choice if you don't usually keep cream in the refrigerator (and that's what I used when I first made this sauce). So you might make the sauce with milk, all the while thinking that cream would be better if only you felt like going to the store. But you might be wrong. Richer is not always better. Milk allows the tastes of the chocolate to come through more—but that also means it does less to hide flavor flaws. Chocolate sauce made with milk has the most intense bittersweet chocolate flavor. So, if you are using a harsh or mediocre-tasting chocolate, don't make your sauce with milk! If your milk-based sauce is delicious but a tad too tart or austere, stir in bits of the optional butter to round out the flavor. Way over at the other end of the taste spectrum, chocolate sauce made with heavy cream—although still bittersweet--is positively voluptuous and creamy. It is also decidedly milder, less chocolatey, and less bittersweet. Half-and-half or a combination of milk and cream lends you somewhere between. If you've read my story about the nectarine (see page 68), you will rightly guess that I have also made this sauce with water! A versatile sauce indeed.

Alice's Chocolate Sauce
Makes 1 3/4 cups
10 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 to 1 cup milk, half-and-half, heavy cream, or any combination
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (if using milk instead of cream, but optional)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Put the chocolate and 1/2 cup of the milk or cream in a large heatproof bowl set in a wide skillet or barely simmering water and stir frequently until the chocolate is melted and smooth. If the sauce is too thick or looks curdled, add more milk. Or add more liquid if the sauce hardens more than you want it to when you spoon a little "test" over ice. If you have used milk (or even water), taste the sauce and, if you like, tone down the flavor intensity by adding some or all of the butter, bit by bit. Remove the sauce from the water and stir in the vanilla and salt.

Use the warm sauce immediately, or set it aside and rewarm it briefly in a pan of hot water when you need it. (The sauce keeps in a closed container for several days in the refrigerator, and it can be frozen for up to 3 months.)

Chocolate Notes: This extremely accommodating recipe can be made with any bittersweet or semisweet chocolate. The range given for the milk or cream and the recipe instructions will guide you to adjust the liquid upward as needed for higher-percentage chocolates.