I seldom post recipes on this blog. Although I cook quite a bit, it’s rarely anything to shout about, let alone write about.

And, as I think we can all agree, I’m also rubbish at taking photos. My heart’s just not in it. As you can see from the above.

Still, every now and then I feel moved to try something different, and wanted to share.

When I was in Hong Kong 10 years ago, I came across “Double Boiled Milk Pudding with Ginger Juice”. I was rather taken with this simple dessert, and though I never actually made a double boiled pudding, I did make Ginger Milk Pudding/Curd a few times.

I recently remembered it for some reason, and decided to make it again. I followed this recipe minus the milk powder, and it worked brilliantly. However it is undeniably quite a plain affair, and I wondered if you could pep it up somehow with chocolate.

I searched around a bit but couldn’t immediately find a recipe, so I adapted it myself and it worked! It is a very delicate, fragmentally wibbly pudding (like a junket) with a mild chocolate ginger flavour. To me, the appeal comes from how it sets just through the interaction of milk and ginger juice. Magical!

So with thanks to China Sichuan Food website for the original recipe, here is my minor adaptation.

Chocolate Ginger Milk Pudding

Serves 1

• 200ml whole milk
• 1tbsp caster sugar
• 2tsp cocoa powder
• Lump of fresh ginger, minimum 2.5cm squared

1. Mix the sugar and cocoa powder in a microwaveable pint jug.
2. Pour in a little milk, stir well with a fork, then pour in the rest of the milk and mix well.
3. Heat in the microwave for approximately 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds or so. You want to heat it to around 90 degree C, without boiling, so check the temperature frequently.
4. Remove jug from microwave and set to one side.
5. Scrape the skin from your ginger lump with a teaspoon, and finely grate around 1 tbsp of ginger.
6. Press through a sieve or tea strainer to end up with around 2tsp of juice.
7. Pour the juice into a dessert bowl.
8. Check the temperature of your chocolate milk. When it gets to between 65 – 70 degree C, pour over the ginger juice at a height of at least 15cm. Do not stir.
9. It should start to “set” fairly soon, and you could eat warm, but I prefer to cool and then refrigerate.