Cooking With Chocolate: Savoury & Sweet

When you think of cooking with chocolate, chocolate fondants

, puddings and truffles may be amongst the first foods which spring to mind.

There are countless varieties of chocolate available today, with creamy white chocolate on one end of the spectrum and bittersweet chocolate with 85% cocoa solids on the other.

Chocolate as a produce itself has been merged with other ingredients including chilli, mint, butterscotch and cherry which you can also cook with. To grasp an understanding of which ingredients would work combined with different types of chocolate, we would recommend a chocolate tasting session, which we're sure wont get many objections!

Everyone knows and loves the classic chocolate desserts from melt in the middle fondant puddings to chocolate fudge cake and brownies. However, you dont only have to use chocolate to create something suitable for the dessert menu. Used correctly, chocolate can add depth and body to savoury dishes by providing complementing, and in some cases, bold flavours and take your food to the next level.

Of course chocolate doesnt suit every savoury dish but once the properties and varieties of chocolate as an ingredient are understood, there is no stopping you from experimenting with new flavours.

To offer some inspiration on where to start, chocolate can work well when incorporated in a sauce to accompany meat dishes, for example Braised beef with pear and chocolate sauce, Pan roasted lamb with port and chocolate sauce, blue cheese leeks and pommes fondant and Mocha Lamb Casserole.

However chocolate also works well in a many types of curries and is often an ingredient used to add depth of flavour to a classic Chilli con Carne and other Mexican dishes such as Enchiladas and Quesadillas.

When thinking of a gift to buy for someone, the standard box of chocolate and flowers usually does the trick, but why not take that a step further and make your own unique box of chocolates?

Cooking with chocolate enables you to experiment with new flavours and variations of known and new dishes. This could be a matter of trial and error but lets face it, cooking with chocolate is just plain fun because, its chocolate.

But if you need some inspiration and guidance when using this versatile ingredient there are many cookery schools across the UK providing cookery courses to teach you how it's done, and give you some ideas for dishes that it can be added to.

These courses will teach you about the history, production methods and cooking techniques of chocolate to provide you with all the skills you need to prepare delicious chocolate treats, both savoury and sweet.

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