Chocolate In Savory Cooking

Despite being more common in sweet foods, chocolate has been used as an ingredient in savory cooking for over a thousand years.

Historically In the Americas, chocolate has been inconsistently included in savory cooking: used by the Mayans as early as 400 CE and essentially prohibited by the Aztecs. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, chocolate featured extensively in European cuisine, particularly in Northern Italy. Preparations included lasagna, fried liver and ragout dishes.

Today, although savory chocolate is most famously used in the Mexican sauce mole, it is still an ingredient in some European dishes. It is generally added in small quantities, to emulsify, improving texture, to add complexity, and to provide balance to acidic flavors. Some contemporary chefs have used chocolate in savory dishes, notably Heston Blumenthal in the early 2000s.

History

Inscriptions on a Petén bowl from 400 CE contain a reference to chocolate, referring either to a Mayan mole or a chocolate-flavored tamale. If the former, as of 2024 this would constitute the first known reference to mole. Although the dish mole poblano is often credited to the Aztecs, they did not use chocolate to flavor cooking; historians Michael and Sophie Coe analogize such use to Christians making coq au vin using sacramental wine. In a popular legend, the use of chocolate in mole is attributed to Mexican nuns in late 17th century Puebla. Culinary historian Maricel Presilla credits the Central American tradition of thickened chocolate drinks with influencing this addition.

Chocolate was considered a pleasant and unremarkable addition to European cuisine as of the mid-17th century. The first appearance in a French recipe is 1691, where it was used in a chocolate ragout served with wigeon. In the recipe, it was not explained how chocolate was made. During the 17th century, chocolate was a common ingredient in European cooking, particularly in Northern Italy. 18th-century Italian recipes contain chocolate as an ingredient in recipes for pappardelle, fried liver, black polenta and a 1786 manuscript from Macerata records a lasagna sauce containing chocolate, alongside anchovies, walnuts and almonds.

Modern use

While chocolate is commonly understood as only being appropriate for sweet applications, chocolate is used as an ingredient in several popular recipes and by contemporary chefs. Chocolate is generally used in small quantities to emulsify, or, as described by Auguste Escoffier, to give dishes "some silkiness".

Mole

The most popular use of chocolate in savory cooking today is in mole, where a small amount is added as the sauce is fried at the end of cooking. The amount added being small is important to mole aficionados and recipe writers: they often emphasize it in an effort to prevent mole being known as chocolate sauce. Moles are a broad ranges of sauces, and chocolate is generally restricted to the red or black varieties.

Chocolate is especially prevalent in mole preparations for celebrations, such as baptisms and holidays. Although the chocolate is sometimes intensively prepared by grinding cocoa beans on metate, often in Mexico today cacao nibs or Mexican chocolate is purchased from supermarkets and used. This Mexican chocolate contains sugar, cinnamon and sometimes ground almonds and is mass-produced as well as made artisanally.

Another sauce popular in Central America, '' pipián'', does not usually contain chocolate except in a variety popular in Guatemala that originated in Sololá. The version tastes very similar to mole.

Other

Chocolate is paired with venison and wild boar in Tuscany, including in the sweet-and-sour sauce agrodolce. In Italy more broadly, chocolate is stirred into stews and braises to thicken and add flavor. In Italy and Spain, chocolate is sometimes added to coq au vin. Breadcrumbs are combined with chocolate in migas in some regions of Spain. In western recipes, chocolate has historically often been added to wine sauces, such as the . In the United States, a small amount of unsweetened chocolate is added by some cooks to chili con carne to add "richness, deeper flavor, and umami." A spice mix for this purpose made of cocoa, paprika and chipotle is sold in spice shops in the country. In Mexican cooking, chocolate and cocoa powder are treated as a spice. They use chocolate to soften sharp flavors, such as the acidity of tomatoes, and to give dishes complexity.

Contemporary chefs have used chocolate in various forms, including white and dark chocolate, as well as using cacao nibs. White chocolate has been used as an ingredient in savory cooking to add gloss and creaminess to sauces, counterbalance saltiness, and bring "richness" to vegetarian dishes. Contemporary chefs using dark chocolate often pair it with savory winter vegetables, such as parsnips and wild mushrooms. In the 2000s, it became common for chefs such as Heston Blumenthal to recommend pairing foods with similar flavour molecules, such as white chocolate with caviar or garlic and coffee with chocolate, citing the belief that these shared compounds would produce a superior result. Blumenthal had turned away from this school of thought by 2010, calling it a product of his younger self's "bumptious enthusiasm" and saying that the number of flavour molecules in food made such an approach too "complex" to predict the results of.

See also

* Types of chocolate

Notes

References

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Chocolate
Cooking
Mesoamerican cuisine
Italian cuisine