I’ve never been a huge fan of nougatine (i.e., torrone, the confection made from egg whites, honey, and various types of nuts), especially the crunchy Italian kind, but this year for some reason I got a craving for it.
More specifically, I got a craving for the soft, dark chocolate-covered kind with hazelnuts.
I was Christmas-shopping in Despaña, the fabulous Spanish market on Broome Street in Soho that I somehow never went into until just a couple of months ago, when I came across of the box of the stuff, and it just looked so incredibly good. Chocolate and hazelnuts are a favorite of mine on their own (how could you ever go wrong with the main ingredients in Nutella), but this raised things to a whole different level.
The problem was that I had already had a ridiculous amount of chocolate at home, and there was just no way I could justify buying any more.
A couple of days later I found myself in Kalustyan’s in Murray Hill and saw it again, but somehow I managed to resist yet a second time.
The third time, however, was the charm. I’d gone out to Astoria and ended up browsing in Rosario’s, the Italian grocery store next to the Ditmars stop on the N/W train, when I saw it yet again.
It only cost five bucks (different brand but half the Manhattan price!), and besides, by that point I was pretty much done with my existing chocolate stash. Obviously, I had no choice but to buy it.
Briefly, I wondered whether I was actually going to be able to finish it; At this was unquestionably the biggest piece of nougatine I had ever bought (actually, it was the only piece of non-gift nougatine I had ever bought), but as soon as I bit into it, my doubts were quickly allayed.
Let me tell you, that “soft” nougatine part was not an exaggeration. I was expecting it to be somewhat chewy, but in fact it was basically the consistency of a Three Musketeers bar—for the first time, I understood what the nougat in Three Musketeers was modeled after. I also understood just what a pale imitation it was.
This nougat, however, was also very sweet—it rubbed right up against the border of being too sweet, but without actually crossing that line. (For me, at least, but I have a pretty sweet tooth; for someone else, it might have been too much.) And it was incredibly addictive. So addictive, in fact, that I managed to go through about half of the really huge bar in just a couple of hours.
I might have to try a different brand next time, just for the sake of comparison, but this is absolutely getting added to my list of go-to items.