Carnes y chocolate

[pedro]

Over the past few years, I've had several game dishes that used chocolate in the sauce, all of them in France, by the way. In some cases the taste of chocolate was quite pronounced in the sauce. In all cases it's been a delicious success. The Mexicans have been using chocolate with meat for a long time.

Perdices con chocolate (partridge with chocolate) is a traditional dish in Spain, I believe specifically in Toledo, Bux.

One of the dishes that I've enjoyed the most, was some cuitlacoche quesadillas with mole poblano and chocolate sauce. Clearly mexican influenced .

[Eduardo]

Perdices con chocolate (partridge with chocolate) is a traditional dish in Spain, I believe specifically in Toledo, Bux.

One of the dishes that I've enjoyed the most, was some cuitlacoche quesadillas with mole poblano and chocolate sauce. Clearly mexican influenced .

[Bux]

Although I've not seen it, I'm not surprised to find savory meat dishes with chocolate in the recipe in Spain.

[Rogelio]

And what about the Cordero Agridulce (Sweetand sour lamb) which has chocolate in it's recipe.

[pedro]

We do also have "Migas con Chocolate", which I'm not sure if they are typical from Extremadura or Alcalá de Henares. Please, Pedro and folks, help me explaining this recipe… I believe it has some garlic on it, so there we have the chocolate alioli explanation!!!

I'm not totally convinced about this one, Eduardo. I'd rather consider it a dessert, which I'm sure Bux was not referring to when he made his stament about chocolate in spanish recipes. Dessert, but with odd ingredients: turn into crumbs your some days old bread, fry them in olive oil with garlic and paprika, and make them not greasy. After that pour them in hot chocolate and you've got it.

[Bux]

I knew migas were crumbs, but I really had no idea what Migas con Chocolate was, but I appreciate the connection made with garlic and chocolate here. Maybe there aren't many Spanish savory dishes that use chocolate.

I've had an excellent mole sauce with chocolate in a Mexican restaurant in Chicago. Chicago has a large Mexican community and is a better place for Mexican food that NYC, but of course not as good as Mexico. I don't know much about mole, or Mexican cooking, but I don't think mole is a native dish that goes back before Columbus and I also don't have any idea how it might relate to any dish in Spain.

The use of chocolate in Cordero Agridulce and Perdices con chocolat is interesting. Can anyone provide either recipes or a description of the dishes.

[VeryApe77]

I don't know much about mole, or Mexican cooking, but I don't think mole is a native dish that goes back before Columbus and I also don't have any idea how it might relate to any dish in Spain.

Bux,

Slightly off-topic, but it's a nice story - Mole sauce has been traced back to the 1680's and is believed to be the creation of Sister Andreas, a nun of the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla. It was created to honor of Archbishop Don Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz and his guest, Don Antonio de la Cerda y Aragon, Viceroy of New Spain. The archbishop apparently made a last-minute visit to the nunnery, and the nuns did not have a lot in the way of fancy food. In a panic, they threw everything they had in the kitchen into one pot - thus mole was created (thank goodness they had some chocolate that day). I have also heard some versions of this story that claim that Sister Andreas actually prayed to God asking for help with this last-minute culinary problem, and had a vision dictating that they just throw everything into the pot!

Of course, who knows whether any of this is true or not?

Edited January 28, 2004 by VeryApe77 (log)

[Bux]

Without remembering a date or the names, I had some recollection of the story about it being created on the spot for a visiting dignitary. It seems odd that it would develop as a local tradition, but it's a nice story. It would be interesting to know when the first appearance of chocolate was made in a savory dish in Spain. From what little I've read, chocolate was used in liquid form by the Mayans. They drank chocolate. They didn't eat it. By the time Sister Andreas created mole (who am I to dispute this) I assume things had changed.

[magnolia]

I've got a Basque recipe for rabbit stewed in chocolate and tomatoes which I can post tomorrow, in fact I'm about to try it Friday- though I'm not a fan of rabbit, which I will be replacing with pork loin (either on or off the bone, I haven't yet decided). And I've recently seen lamb and venison recipes with chocolate (and coffee), I'll check where these hail from.

[nerdgirl]

That sound delicious! Please post!!!

[magnolia]

OK, here 'tis - I am not sure what the rules are on copyrighted recipes so I've abridged / changed the wording herewith but Bux let me know if I'm violating something and/or need to change anything further. I can't remember the exact title of the book this is from (I copied the article) but will add it tomorrow...

Estofat de Conill (Basque Rabbit with Tomato & Chocolate) Serves 4

3 tbsps flour

salt & pepper

1 2 lb (1 kg) rabbit cut in pieces

2 tbsps vegetable oil

2 sliced onions

1 tbsp paprika

tiny pinch of cayenne

3 chopped garlic cloves

2 cups (500 ml) robust red wine

2 cups (500 ml) veal or chicken stock, plus extra if needed

2 lbs (1kg) peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes

1/2 oz (15g) chopped unsweetened chocolate

13 bay leaves

1 stick of cinnamon

Heat oven to 350F/175C. Put flour, salt & pepper in a plastic bag, add the rabbit pieces and toss to coat thoroughly.

Heat the oil in a shallow pan.

Shake off the rabbit pieces and brown them on all sides -7-10 minutes.

When browned, remve rabbit; addd onions & brown them - 7-10 minutes.

Lower the heat; stir in paprika and cayenne, and cook gently, stirring, until fragrant - 1-2 minutes.

Stir in garlic and cook 1 more minute.

Pour in red wine and simmer for about 2 minutes; add stock, tomatoes, chocolate, bay leaves & cinnamon, and bring to a boil.

Put rabbit pieces back in, push them down until they are immersed in the sauce.

Cover the pan; return to a boil and transfer to the oven.

Bake, stirring occasionally until the rabbit is very tender when pierced with a two pronged fork - 45minutes to an hour.

Remove the rabbit and boil the sauce on top of the stove to reduce it until it is dark and rich - about 10 minutes.

Discard the bay leaves & cinnamon stick, taste and djust seasoning.

The rabbit can be refrigerated up to three days or frozen for several weeks.

--------------------

So...I was thinking of making this with pork loin as I don't like rabbit; I can't decide whether to cut it up, leave it whole, bone in, bone out, open to suggestions.

Edited March 2, 2004 by magnolia (log)

[vserna]

Magnolia: This is a Catalan recipe (with a Catalan name, 'estofat de conill'), not a Basque one. The Catalans and Galicians have a long tradition of cooking with chocolate, as of course the Mexicans do; the Basques like their chocolate sweet...

[Bux]

Fascinating to hear that about Galician cooking. I don't recall coming across any dishes with chocolate in my short stay in Galicia. As I recall, we ate mostly seafood and drank Albariño except for the odd goat and Godello in our diet.

As for rabbit and chocolate, I had a fantastic stew of wild hare with dark chocolate in the Loire.

[magnolia]

Magnolia: This is a Catalan recipe (with a Catalan name, 'estofat de conill'), not a Basque one. The Catalans and Galicians have a long tradition of cooking with chocolate, as of course the Mexicans do; the Basques like their chocolate sweet...

Oh well, ¿Qué sé yo?

Anne Willan calls is Basque Rabbit with Chocolate and Tomatoes in "Cooking with Wine".

Wherever it's from, it sounds delicious and doesn't look too difficult.

However...here's the caveat. I'm not a huge rabbit fan, so I'm making it with pork loin.

I have 1 kg of pork loin to substitute for the rabbit, which is obviously far different in format from rabbit cut into pieces; with this in mind, a) how do I make sure not to dry it out while I'm browning it- as it will need a lot more time to brown than the rabbit pieces would; and b) how much longer do I need to slow-cook this solid piece it in the oven, to make sure it's cooked through (don't want to serve something that's raw on the inside!) but not dried out...

Any/all suggestions would be most welcome!

[Bux]

This is a great place to discuss the cultural aspects of food, at least as related to the Iberan peninsula, but you might do far better discussing cooking in the Cooking forum. The only similarity between rabbit and pork loin I can see, is that they're both relatively lean. The meat however, seems very different.

[vserna]

Bux: Galicia's only sophisticated cooking traditions are those developed since the Middle Ages in the many convents and monasteries in this isolated region. There are, from the 18th century, a few interesting chocolate-based savory dishes amid those recipes of Galician 'cocina monacal', including one that's spread thgroughout Spain as this country's signature chocolate dish: perdiz con chocolate (partridge with a chocolate sauce). Pedro identifies it with Toledo, but the Toledo traditional recipe is stewed partridge with vegetables.

Edited March 3, 2004 by vserna (log)

[ludja]

Thought of this thread when I read this article that Carolyn Tillie posted about Paul Wolfert and her new cookbook. The article has a recipe and some discussion for the following Catalonian dish:

Fall-Apart Lamb Shanks with Almond-Chocolate Picada

Paula Wolfert, "The Slow Meditteranean Kitchen"

click

[pedro]

[...]

The Catalans and Galicians have a long tradition of cooking with chocolate

[...]

Certainly, I wasn't aware of that Galician's tradition, perhaps because I'm more familiar with the unsophisticated side of Galician's cooking, based on excellent raw products with little human intervention.

[Chloe]

[...]

The Catalans and Galicians have a long tradition of cooking with chocolate

[...]

Certainly, I wasn't aware of that Galician's tradition, perhaps because I'm more familiar with the unsophisticated side of Galician's cooking, based on excellent raw products with little human intervention.

Well, I know of a restaurant called Chocolate ...

Chloe

[vserna]

That's because the founder, Manolo Cores, was so crazy about chocolate as a kid that he got that nickname. But the restaurant's real specialty (and a new thing in Galicia back in the 1970s) is grilled beef! (Red meat was not a common staple in Galicia a few years back.)