Blogger Secret Ingredient Chocolate Goes Savory

Oh kitchen, how I’ve missed you.  Between craziness at my full time job and prepping for and teaching my night course (which went MUCH better this week, btw) I was a stranger in my own kitchen this week.  It saw little more action than me making sandwiches for lunch and dinner (and not the complex type mind you, simple ham and cheese).  I can tell when I haven’t properly cooked in awhile because I feel out of sorts.  It’s relaxing, an outlet for creativity, and (near) instant gratification — all things that I don’t always get a lot of in other aspects of my life.  Tonight I decided enough was enough and brainstormed ideas for dinner between spare moments at work.  In the end I decided to make something that would qualify for this week’s blogger secret ingredient challenge hosted by  London Foodie in New York.  It’s been awhile since I’ve done a blogging event (in the past I’ve done Sugar High Fridays and My Legume Love Affair).  I enjoy doing them because it’s a chance to push myself out of my comfort zone and do something creative.  I also love seeing what everyone makes in the end because it’s interesting how a single prompt can go in so many different directions.

This week’s ingredient wasn’t exactly something new to my kitchen: chocolate.  I cook with chocolate a lot.  I absolutely love the flavor of rich, dark chocolate and it’s pretty safe to say that 90% of the time if I’m craving dessert there is going to be some kind of chocolate involved.  This time though I wanted to take my chocolate in a savory direction.  I’ve had a lot of success with this in the past with dishes such as a tangy BBQ sandwich spiked with chocolate, spinach salad with nib vinaigrette, and the always irresistible mole.  This time I decided it was chili I was craving.  The weather was dreary and cold as I sat at my desk dreaming of dinner so it seemed utterly appropriate.  The recipe that follows is a sort of hybrid of many that I found including one for a Three Bean Chocolate Chili from The Essence of Chocolate.  It’s full of both classic and imaginative (the BBQ sandwich and salad recipes mentioned above are from this book as well) recipes involving chocolate.  I couldn’t recommend the book more highly and still have many, many recipes bookmarked that are just waiting to be made.

My chili combined the standard ground beef (part of my meat CSA for this month – also included were ground pork, hot Italian sausages, a ham steak, and a lamb steak so expect to see those this month as well) with flavorful ingredients like bacon, chipotle chili powder, brown sugar, cinnamon, and of course, cocoa.  To balance out the richness of the spices and meat products I also included some lovely diced delicata squash and fresh sweet corn kernels from my produce CSA share.  I love working with the delicata squash because its small size and thin skin makes it easy to work with, but you could easily substitute another winter squash variety.  It was a great addition to the chili and provided a nice textural contrast to the corn and meat.

Overall this is a great recipe if you’re nervous about using chocolate in a savory application.  It adds richness and depth of flavor, but the end product doesn’t scream chocolate.  In fact if you don’t tell your guests its there all but those with the most refined palates will probably not pick it out, but they will notice the certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ it brings.  I served this with sour  cream, chopped avocado, shredded cheese, and some corn chips but it would be equally lovely atop some polenta or as a nacho topper.

Tagged as: Chili, Chocolate, Main dish