Cocoa nibs

Grué de cacao

What it is

Roasted cocoa beans cracked into fragments, before any sugar or grinding — this is what chocolate is made from, and it is unrecognisably bitter. The Aztecs drank it with chilli and used the beans as currency.

In the kitchen

Use them as you would a nut, for crunch and bitterness against something sweet. They never soften.

Goes with

Dark chocolate Cream Raspberry Banana Coffee Honey Hazelnut Orange

Same species

Blond chocolate Cocoa mass Cacao pulp Cocoa butter Cocoa bean husk Dutch-process cocoa powder

Also used with

Amaranth Da Hong Pao Kola nut Pili nut Sacha inchi Yacon syrup

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