The Versatility of Chocolate
October 3, 2014
I’ve been eating a different chocolate each day for more than eight years. I love the unadulterated flavor notes in a well-made single origin chocolate bar. However, I’ve also come to admire the amazing versatility of cacao after blending different chocolates with fruits, nuts, spices, beverages and savory items over time.
What makes good flavor blends in food? Fresh ingredients, and a skillful mix of the five basic tastes--salty, sweet, bitter, sour, umami (meaty, savory)--are two considerations. And these do apply to chocolate as well.
However, for a single “food,” chocolate is amazingly complex, and like wine, different chocolates will harmonize well with some foods and will create terrible alchemy with other items.
Experiencing Chocolate With Other Flavors
Salt and fat influence how we experience chocolate. Fleur de sel chocolates are popular with good reason. Salt helps balance bitter, sour and acidic notes and balances sweetness (sugar) in chocolate. And chefs everywhere are fond of using a pinch of salt and sugar to enhance food flavors.
Savory foods such as cheese and bacon also contribute an umami flavor and fat to the tongue may help soften certain acidic qualities in chocolate, just as they might when blended with acidic fruit.
While stronger, soft cheeses and fruit play nicely together, one can sometimes find a few milk chocolates (e.g. Artisan du Chocolat’s Ginger and Lemongrass bar, or a good milk chocolate gianduja bar on occasion) that can stand up to stronger cheeses as well. (Most robust dark chocolates will not work.)
Sometimes the cacao bean flavors themselves determine pairings. Patric Chocolate’s PBJ bar is meant to evoke the flavors of peanut butter and jelly/jam. This bar does contain some peanut butter; however, the berry fruit jam notes that seem to come from added fruit, are provided by Madagascan cacao beans and sugar, expertly crafted and blended by Alan “Patric” McClure.
Skilled cooks and confectioners around the world understand how to blend fat, salt and acid (blue cheese and pears; bacon and chocolate; peanut butter and fruit; etc.) And, one doesn’t need to get into the more technical reasons of why we have a natural attraction to the Maillard reaction to understand that some fusions just taste yummy.
Whisky, or Whiskey
Regardless of your spelling preference, a small sip of a good well rounded (but not too harsh or peaty) whiskey can be a good pairing with chocolate.
I generally prefer whiskey over red wine pairings. I haven’t tried putting pickle juice in whiskey, but I do enjoy pairing good spirits with good chocolate. (See Scotch With Chocolate Covered Bacon post for an example.)
A few salted nuts or gluten-free pretzels on the side sometimes mesh with this pairing, but add those later, if possible, so you can better detect how unadulterated chocolate notes are reacting with the whiskey and vice-versa. That said, there are some tried and true trios.
Holy Trinities
I’m sometimes asked if I have favorite chocolate pairings. Perennial tasting triads that I come back to involve chocolate and hazelnuts (whole and ground); chocolate, figs and brandy or sherry; chocolate, sea salt and nuts. But there are simply too many other favorites to name.
I have done “theme weeks” on my ChocolateBanquet.com site that involve almost every fruit, nut, spice and beverage you can imagine, as well as the savory items: e.g., meat (think barbeque spice rubs and mole sauces), salads (think roasted cocoa nibs), and olives (think smoke infused EVOO in a chocolate cake). Chocolate and floral flavors -- there’s enough there for another article. Suffice to say, I like those too.
As strange as it may sound, I’ve enjoyed experimenting with a “fungi” theme week as well (think black or white truffle butter, or candy cap mushrooms), and a hint of salt and dairy fat (butter, ice cream) is often the “third” man in these chocolate + fungi combinations making them work.
Conclusion
Don’t be too hasty to dismiss unlikely chocolate pairings. Experiment on your own to see what you like.
Every person has a slightly different palette and preferences -- and a set of food memories and experiences that predisposes them to like (or dislike) certain foods. However, I recommend keeping an open mind when it comes to chocolate. It would be a shame to miss some unlikely, but wonderful, chocolate pairings.
Resources
- Bon Appetit - “The Science Behind Our Seemingly Weird Food Combinations”
- The Naked Scientists - Why do some foods complement each other so well?
- Winter Chocolate Events and Escapes - January 30, 2015
- The Versatility of Chocolate - October 3, 2014
- Exploring Cacao in Southern Belize - September 5, 2014