Chocolate Caliente with Clove: A Spiced Peruvian Hot Chocolate

Steep Milk: In a small saucepan, warm 2 cups of milk over low heat until it emits steam. Avoid boiling the milk; scalding it deepens nothing more than burnt bottom bitterness.

Add whole cloves and one cinnamon stick to warmed milk. Steep 2 minutes, pressing cinnamon occasionally to help it curl gently into the milk.

Add chopped dark chocolate and optional pinch of sea salt all at once. Wait 20 seconds while it starts to melt before whisking: this choco-luminescence helps prevent angry tiny chocolate shards from being lonely at the bottom.

Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar one teaspoon at a time until chocolate is glossy and, when lifted on a whisk, creates the smooth falling ribbon feared by impetuous drinkers everywhere.

Remove from heat and fish out cloves and cinnamon stick. If a fleck-free drink is your family’s standard for a fancy hot chocolate, set a fine-mesh strainer alongside and pour strained chocolate through it directly into mugs to catch little unintended floaty snack.

Serve immediately into two warmed mugs. Pass thick batons of fried sweet potato or, for a simpler pleasure, a dollop of whipped cream on top. Then, whenever permitted, sip with whole soft spicy-sweet perfume and pretend it was exactly what happened in one unbroken shot.