Cooking With Chocolate | How To Use Sweet Ingredients For Savory Recipes

Cooking with chocolate is an ancient process of using sweet ingredients for savory recipes and dishes. In fact savory recipes that include the use of chocolate will manifest the depth of the flavors and transform a sweet ingredient into a complex profile. Many types of chocolate are on the market today, with different percentiles marking the bitter factor, while white chocolate in not even really chocolate at all.

It begins with the harvest of cocoa beans, and if eaten in this form it is actually quite bitter and not very favored. After the cocoa beans are harvested they will go thought the process of making chocolate with the addition of butter, milk, and sugar and the amounts of these additives along with others will determine the density of the bitter factor.

Many know three basic types of chocolate, bittersweet or dark, milk, and white chocolate, although the break down of chocolate is a little more complex than that. The actual process of the cocoa bean breakdown is what determines how bitter the chocolate is, or what kinds of chocolate will work best in various types of recipes both sweet and savory.

Chocolate Liquor - This is the purest form of chocolate, straight from the cocoa bean. The beans are ground into a power and turned into a liquid, do note there is no alcohol in the liquor. Unsweetened chocolate is the solid from of this and is primarily used for baking.

Cocoa Butter - While there is no butter in the cocoa bean the cocoa butter is referred to the fat found in the chocolate liquor.

Cocoa Powder - This is the solid left after the cocoa butter and chocolate liquor are separated and pressed. Dutch cocoa powder is different that cocoa powder, it goes through a refined process to lessen the acidity and tends to blend easier.

Bittersweet - Chocolate with a minimum of 50% chocolate liquor.

Semi-Sweet - Minimum of 35% chocolate liquor.

Dark - Here is where the cocoa butter and sweeteners start to come into play with chocolate as this only contains about 15% of chocolate liquor.

Milk - While this contains at least 10% chocolate liquor, it also consists of about 12% milk solids, cocoa butter, sugar, and other flavorings like vanilla.

White Chocolate - Some speculate this is not even apart of the chocolate category, although technically it is. There is no brown color due to it not containing cocoa solids. This super sweet derivative of chocolate is only created with cocoa butter, milk solids, and sugar. That is why this member of the chocolate family tree is a little to harder to work with. So keep in mind when applying heat to fat solids there is more of a risk of the molecules breaking apart.

***When buying bitter to semi sweet chocolate there may be a percentage on the package, 72% or lower, referring to the guide above the higher the number the purer the chocolate and more richer, bitter flavor.

Think of chocolate as wine when cooking with savory dishes, the darker the main ingredient, then the darker or bitter the chocolate. For example, braised short ribs are known as a rich fatty morsel of red meat usually paired with tomatoes and red wine, so using a bitter chocolate with a percentage of 50% or higher or even unsweetened chocolate is suggested. This is not intended to add a sweet tone but more of a deeper element that promotes the flavor of the red meat and sauce.

Red Wine and Dark Chocolate Sauce For Beef Roasts

An amazing sauce or even gravy for roasted beef is made with a hint of very bitter chocolate. I like to create a basic yet flavorful beef stock that is reduced to about one cup. Then sauteing a melody of leeks and garlic till caramel color, deglazing with a Burgundy blend wine, adding fresh rosemary, then about 2 oz. of 72% good quality bittersweet chocolate. Allow the sauce to gently simmer until it coats the back of a spoon and add about 4 Tbs. of unsalted butter to finish. This sauce has won awards, featured on over 100 wine dinners, and always makes a lasting impression for family gatherings.

Sweet Diablo Buerre Blanc

Now if you consider yourself an advanced culinary expose in your realm of knowledge in the food trends, I challenge you to try this out the box recipe that is killer with poultry, pork,lamb, and salmon. Buerre blanc is a classic French sauce, that literally means white butter. The sauce has many variations although the basic is made with white wine, garlic, shallot, bay leaves, then butter is whisk or emulsified with in the reduced wine, creating a rich buttery sauce.

When I was writing a menu for a wine dinner I wanted to showcase not only this sauce, but also entertain the guest's palette with undertones of sweet white chocolate and counter balance the sweetness with a little heat from toasting cayenne. The result was not only pleasing to the eyes but it also brought the Yukon salmon to another level. I also paired the dish with root vegetables, like parsnips and celeric, to tie in the earth tones of the wine as well as apply the bite from the veggies. And after a few trials and tweaking this is what came to be:

• 1 lb. unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
• 1 1/2 cup dry white wine ( only use what you would drink )
• 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 large shallot, roughly chopped
• 2 each bay leaves
• 2 tsp. cayenne powder
• 2 oz. white chocolate, good quality
• Kosher salt and fresh ground white pepper

In a small skillet, gently toast the cayenne pepper over low heat for 5 minutes

In a medium sauce pot add the wine, garlic, shallot, and bay leaves. Simmer wine mixture until wine is reduced to about 1/4 cup.

Add toasted cayenne and adjust heat to low. This is very important when making buerre blancs, if the temperature is to high the sauce will break.

Begin whisk a piece of butter one at a time, adding a piece right before the other melts. When all butter has been added, then remove sauce from heat and stir in white chocolate, adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

Server immediately. The sauce is intended to be served right at plating time, and does not hold for very long unless you use a thermos, although this should not be an issue for home cooks. When this sauce is made for service there are a couple of tricks we use to preserve the large batch to last through service. If the sauce breaks, it can be saved with a little hot water vigorously whisked in.

Think Outside Of The Box With Chocolate

My professional arena with creating food has always stemmed from taking ideas, concepts, and ingredients that are not normally thought to go together. This is what I love most about food and cooking, outside of the box ideals that meld into a unique one of a kind culinary experience. Below is a link to fellow hubber, Deb, that actually made a dish I included in a hub, and then took it to her own unique and ingenious level. Not only did Deb execute one dish, she did something even more phenomenal in my book, took a recipe and threw her own twist on it and that is what makes an incredible cook.

So with the recipes and ideas above, allow them to ignite the inner creative cooking ambitions, and remember there is never failure in a kitchen or a cook, for each recipe tried is one step closer to culinary bliss.