From Chef Nouel Omamalin, here’s the second of a series of recipes you can try out for Christmas and New Year’s. Have some holiday recipes and stories to share? Send them to pinoycentric@gmail.com.

The knackerli, a traditional Swiss confection, is a chocolate patty decorated with nuts and dried fruit. Chef Nouel adds a Pinoy twist to this recipe with two local ingredients: dessicated coconut and dried mango.

The recipe is so simple that you don’t have to be a whiz in the kitchen to make it. If you have kids around, you can get them to help in decorating the chocolate patties. It would be a great way to bond.

If dessicated coconut or dried mango isn’t your thing, you can replace these ingredients with something else, like dried papaya or pineapple, or even add a dash of pinipig (toasted rice) or cashew. Let your imagination run free. And hey, we’d love to hear about your version of the knackerli.

Ingredients
250g dark chocolate compound
50g dessicated coconut, roasted warm
peeled pistachios
dried mango, sliced into strips
whole peanuts, roasted and skinned
raisins

Procedures

1. Melt the chocolate in a microwave oven or over a pan of simmering water (baine-marie).
2. Fold in the warm roasted desiccated coconut.
3. With a tablespoon, drop rounded portions of the mixture on a sheet of wax paper.
4. Carefully arrange the pistachio, dried mango, raisin, and peanut on top of the chocolate to create a pattern or design.
5. Let cool under low temperature. Refrigeration is not required if the preparation area is about 25C.

Notes from the chef
It is important that compound chocolate is used. This ingredient is readily available in cake shops.

Previous recipe: Lemon-mango fruitcake