TGRWT#5: Meat with chocolate - are you kidding?

To try and eat meat with chocolate – that’s no easy challenge. Like – no way. But the more I thought about it, the more tempted I felt. Not only to test myself but also to shock others to see what they’d say and if they’d have anything to say at all. Well, they had. Amrita’s challenge for this months TGRWT#5 – combining meat and chocolate – has been the most intriguing one this far.

A traditional mole would have been a safer choice, I guess, because it’s widely known that it has chocolate in it and people actually eat it and like it and they actually do. No mole this time, amigos. I used an Italian recipe (Cinghiale in agrodolce) that actually called for wild boar (not a good idea to spend a pile of money if you’re mixing meat with chocolate for the first time – trust me), but used pork, I also lessened the amount of red wine vinegar. Otherwise I followed the recipe, word for word. Quite a scary afternoon.

Pork in chocolate and prune sauce
(adapted from Hans Joachim Döbbelin’s ’Italy’)

100 g prunes
75 g big raisins
600 g pork chops
75 g bacon
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
50 g bitter chocolate
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 dl red wine vinegar
3 laurel leaves
cinnamon

1. Soak prunes and raisins in lukewarm water
2. Cut the meat into slices
3. Chop bacon and heat it with olive oil until transparent
4. Add pork chops and fry them on both sides, then add salt and fry for additional 10 minutes on lower heat.
5. Drain prunes and raisins and grate chocolate (for me it was easier to just chop it into little pieces)
6. Heat sugar, laurel leaves and red wine vinegar on a pan until sugar dissolves, then add the mixture to the meat
7. Also add raisins, prunes, chocolate and some cinnamon, then heat almost until boiling point (don’t let it boil!)
8. Mix meat and sauce well and heat everything for another 15 minutes, not letting it boil.
9. Serve with pasta or be a traitor like me and serve with rice instead.

I don’t imagine eating something like this with pasta. Really really really. Pasta with sweet and sour chocolate sauce? No. Rice was definitely much better.

Cooking this dish filled the kitchen with overwhelming vinegar smell – that was a bit alarming, especially for my mother. ’If I had known you were going to use it for meat, I wouldn’t have bought you this bottle of vinegar,’ she said when she came home. And also – ’If you asked me to buy meat I thought you’d be making something really good, but you made something sour.’ Okay, not a very bad start.

The dish is best described as sweet and sour chocolate meat. The taste of chocolate, most of all, is strange. It may be strangely good, but it’s still strange, strangely chocolate-y. What I actually like the most, are the prunes – delicate, soft, somehow maintaining a good balance between tastes. I’d rather eat the meat and pick out the prunes (into my mouth, of course), adding some yoghurt to my rice instead of chocolate sauce! The meat has an interesting accent to it, but isn’t flavoured by the sauce in a taste-killing way.

When my parents came home, I kept repeating, ’Really-really, you don’t have to eat this, you can just have rice with smoked chicken, really. Really.’ But strangely this time they wouldn’t listen, although I refused to reveal the components of the dish and hid myself in my room, doing all kinds of, you know, important stuff. After they’d called me for several times to go and explain the mystery, I heard the words ’this meat was good’.

I’m in awe. I’m confused. Something’s wrong in the world.
My parents liked meat in chocolate sauce.

TGRWT#4: Cauliflower gratin that leaves the breath fresh. No kidding!

Another round of the event They Go Really Well Together has been announced and this time the host is Dennis of kookjegek.nl and the theme - mint an mustard. The event is about combining ingredients that have similar volatile aroma compounds and testing if they really do go together in real life.

While last round's strawberry and coriander combination seemed easy-peasy, my mind got quite stuck with this one. *** mint with *** mustard? Oh come on! But I managed to create a dish that I really liked and didn't sound like it originated from the Fear Factor TV show.
This dish can of course be prepared without peppermint - just drop cauliflower florets into boiling water without any additions. Or use broccoli instead of cauliflower. I must admit it was my attention at first, but due to the fact that there was no broccoli at the store where I went...well, cauliflower sounded nice and turned out to be successful in the dish.

I give you...

Peppermint flavoured cauliflower gratin with cheese and mustard

At least about 400 g cauliflower
100 g grated cheese
1/2 dl heavy cream
1 tbsp mild mustard
1 eggyolk
about 1 dl loosely packed dried peppermint leaves (or even better - use fresh ones, this is what I had at home)
salt
white pepper

1. Fill a saucepan with over one litre of water and add dried peppermint leaves. Boil from some minutes.
2. Cut cauliflower into florets and add to water, also add some salt. Boil for 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile mix the eggyolk with mustard, then add heavy cream and grated cheese. Season the sauce with salt and white pepper.
4. Drain the cauliflower florets and discard peppermint leaves (or if you want to have a stronger peppermint flavour - you can chop some of them and mix into the sauce). Mix the florets with the sauce.
5. Grease a baking dish and fill it with the cauliflower and gratin sauce mixture. Bake at 200C for about 20 minutes.

I didn't actually recognise peppermint when I tasted a floret after boiling them and was a bit disappointed. But when it was time to try the finished dish, the taste was there! First the comfortable (and quite rich!) taste of cauliflower gratin with cheese, then came the taste of mustard trying to overwhelm the one of cheese and finally the taste of peppermint - somehow melting into the mustard taste and leaving a quite fresh feeling into my mouth.

I do feel I used the right amount of peppermint - it calmly reminded itself in the dish, without shouting I'm here! Mustards are of course different, I used Finnish mild mustard and the amount seemed okay. I even got a good comment from my mother - something like 'quite good' which means more than the usual Estonian 'normal' and should - I guess - be taken as a compliment.

TGRWT#3 round-up: Strawberries and coriander

Tu-dum!

It's finally time for the round-up of the third round of the flavour pairing event They Go Really Well Together (Originally created by Martin from Khymos.org) that was all about pairing strawberry and coriander.

Or should I say already?
It seems like I've been writing the round up for the whole night now. I'm kind of busy over here as I'm leaving for a training camp tomorrow morning (or should I say today?) and I haven't even finished packing! Luckily my mood couldn't be better than it is right now. Today was the most important day for all Estonians - the day of our song festival. Imagine over 26000 young people singing together as one, singing to their nation! It did get me crying there on the stage, seeing all the people standing up, holding hands.

But let's not get all that weepy now, we're here for some really good food and experimental dishes:)

This round brought together 14 participants. More than one half of them were skeptical at first, but chemistry has sure done it's job here! Although several had their unlucky attempts (including me!), they tried again and succeeded in creating a dish which made strawberry and coriander go really well together. Well, almost, it's a matter of taste anyway. But there was noone to claim that the combination had been inedible.

I'm really proud of all the participants, you've done a whole lot of work and what you've created is really interesting! It's been a pleasure reading all this, it's been a pleasure even in the middle of the night.
Let's dig in!


Johanna from Melbourne at Green Gourmet Giraffe got inspiration from her shampoo and conditioner bottles to prepare Berry Guacamole.

Although eating coriander was quite a challenge for her, she decided to try it. Again. Johanna substituted the usual tomato bits in her guacamole with strawberries and added fresh coriander. She suggests eating it with a simple toast with sauerkraut. Is there someone out there who wouldn't want to try this out (except for my parents, of course) ?

Johannas verdict:The guacamole was great – the sweet succulence of the strawberries contrast nicely with the creaminess of the avocado and the coriander adds an interesting flavour – but still seems a little soapy!

***

Martin of Khymos.org made foamy strawberries with coriander.

He added balsamico vinegar because it emphasizes the strawberry aroma and adds acid which he finds important. He warmed the foam up, well, because he could... I wish I had a whipper like he has!
Martin suggests that the reason why many people don't like the taste of coriander might just be because they've used too much of it in a dish. He advises to try it first in small amounts because the taste will come through well.

Martin's verdict:I was very satisfied and my wife liked it too! There’s a good balance between the strawberry and coriander aroma. Sugar rounds of the taste and the balsamic vinegar balances the sugar with it’s tangyness.

***

Helene from Germany at Neues aus der Küche (New from the kitchen) made a Strawberry and cilantro terrine.

After being disappointed at the combination of strawberry, cilantro and asparagus where cilantro appeared to be really soapy, he decided to just go for adding yoghurt and made a terrine using agar agar. Simple and wonderful, isn't it?

Helene's verdict: It went well, also the yoghurt flattened the dish. My family and I would vote for a simply strawberry salad with cilantro and perhaps a tiny bit of balsamico.

***

Amrite from Singapore at Le Petite Boulanger made a strawberry salsa.

Although she never would have thought the combination to work well, she gave it a try and liked it. A mixture of strawberries, corinader leaves, tomatoes, jalopeno peppers and onions was left to mingle overnight and was served on a bruschetta. Yum.

Amrite's verdict: The result was a fantastic salsa, which was surprisingly not sweet at all. It had a lovely savoury flavour to it, much like regular salsa, but the difference with this salsa was that it had a more delicate flavour. The coriander worked really well in it.

***

Sprenger Robert from Basel in Switzerland at lamiacucina made Strawberries with Campari and coriander filling.

His dessert uses coriander seeds, strawberries are filled with a smooth jelly. The original idea of strawberries with Campari filling is said to come from Ferran Adria himself, the chef of El Bulli. Don't you think it's really really really mouthwatering?

Robert's verdict: The resulting strawberries are a very tasty pre-dessert. The corinader seeds fit very well with the bitter Cmpari and the strawberry. May be, that the bitterness of the Campari did mask the strong taste of the coriander a little bit. Try it!

***

Klaus Dahlbeck from Germany at der Kompottsurfer prepared Roasted coriander ice parfait with marinated strawberries and green tea sauce.

He extended the combination to a triple pairing by adding green tea. This is even more experimental! He discovered that green tea should also be 'chemically ment to be' with strawberry and coriander.

Klaus's verdict: He was impressed by how well the flavours went together.

***

M from M's blog made Freeze filtered cold strawberry consomme.

He roasted all the ingredients, including strawberries and simmered them for one hour. To achieve a cristal clear consomme, he used the freeze filtering technique introduced by Ideas in Food. I'm very impressed by how much work went into this soup. Brilliant!

M's verdict:I didn't recognise the coriander seeds as such but I think that without the 'lemony' seeds the soup would have missed the 'sour' taste. I did like the taste of the soup - something for a warm summerday

***

Alexis and Giao from San Francisco at See Us Eat prepared Coriander custard with fresh strawberries.

They were worried that coriander might overpower the dish and decided to just infuse the custard with coriander seeds by heating them together with it. This fabulous dish definitely made me think of coriander creme brulee...with fresh strawberries of course!

Alexis's and Giao's verdict: This method proved effective in that the custard was subtle in coriander flavor, yet also unmistakable. True to the name of this event, coriander and strawberries really do go really well together.

***

Mari Gordon from the Netherlands at Mevrouw Cupcake made Strawberry Shortcakes with a Coriander Buttermilk Biscuit and Balsamic Cream.

She, although pretty ambivalent on the subject of molecular gastronomy, prepared a wonderful dessert containing both the leaves and seeds of coriander. A good idea for those who just cannot decide!

Mari's verdict: The result, however, was a curiously delicious adaptation of my favorite childhood dessert! The addition of coriander imparts the slightly sweetened biscuit with a savory fragrance. The dark balsamic syrup is pungent, spicy and sweet; but when added to the whipped cream, mellows, allowing the caramel and citrus flavor of the syrup to take center stage.

***

Jen from Sydney at Milk and Cookies prepared Avocados with Strawberry Salsa on Crispy Tortillas.

She just added coriander leaves to an existing strawberry salsa recipe. In fear, it's true, but she's more into molecular gastronomy now than she was before. Doesn't that prove something about the combination?

Jen's verdict: I could taste the strawberries with little hints of coriander here and there and combining the nutty flavour of the avocado somehow neutralised the flavours. I would say that if you did want to try the combination of strawberry and coriander but you’re a bit of a chicken, then this is a recipe you will be able to stomach.

***

Dennis from the Netherlands at Kookjegek made Strawberry and coriander smoothie and a Strawberry and coriander dessert.

As for the smoothie, he just mixed together strawberries, coriander, yoghurt, melon juice and some balsamico in a blender. Perfectly easy, isn't it? Balsamico was also used in his dessert for marinating strawberries that were later served with crème fraîche and coriander.

Dennis's verdict: He also thinks that balsamico is a good addition to the combination, coriander gave both his smoothie and dessert a nice after-taste.

***

Paula Schramm aka Jokerine from hdreioplus.de made Cilantro panna cotta with strawberry sauce.

She decided to go with the motto 'easy does it' and prepared panna cotta with a simple sauce, flavouring both of them with lemon. So nice that a woman in science has decided to join the event!

Paula's verdict: What I always liked about Panna Cotta was the soft creamy consistency. This is really brought out by the freshness of the lemon and cilantro. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

***

Stephanie from the USA at Cupcake, my love made Deep-fried strawberries with chocolate dipping sauce.

Now she is enthusiastic! For the strawberries, she made a deep-frying batter flavoured with cinnamon. But what is a strawberry without chocolate sauce? She ate her warm strawberries with a coriander-infused chocolate dipping sauce.

Stephanie's verdict: My Fried Strawberries with Coriander Chocolate Sauce will easily become a dessert that you will not be able to take your mind off of, so I apologize in advance :0) But you're gonna love it!!!!!!

***

My contribution was Coriander and coconut syrup over sunny strawberries.

I made a syrup using coriander leaves, strained it and mixed with coconut milk. We ate it mixed with fresh strawberries, we ate it with everything.

My verdict: The flavours of strawberries and the syrup 'complete each other. It might be a matter of taste, but I was positively surprised. Coconut had been like a missing link in the combination for me. I believe the syrup is a keeper. On strawberries or on anything.

***

Sarina Nicole from Trinidad over at TriniGourmet made a strawberry-coriander cake with coconut glaze.

This lovely cake contains strawberry jam and ground coriander seeds. Sarina was happy to try adding coriander instead of allspice, because its slightly citric quality would lend itself well to this kind of dessert . And it seems like it did! And well!

Sarina's verdict: ...boy do I think this was the most successful pairing to date!

***

Tara, the wonderful host of TGRWT#2 from Australia at Should you eat that? prepared Strawberry and coriander crumble.

The filling for this dessert is made of diced apple that is caramelized together with crushed coriander and mixed with a strawberry sauce flavoured with balsamico and dried coriander leaves. Ooh. And the topping has crushed coriander seeds in it as well. I don't believe Tara would use the word hate when talking about coriander now...

Tara's verdict: The crushed seeds gave a lovely nutty flavour and aroma to the crumble and in all I think they added a different layer of flavour. It was delicious!

***

Now keep your eyes open as the fourth round has already been announced! Dennis of kookjegek.nl asks us to pair mint and mustard. I'll definitely try to figure something out!
Haven't read about the previous rounds? They're right here!
TGRWT#1: garlic, coffee and chocolate
TGRWT#2: banana and parsley

TGRWT#3: Coriander and coconut syrup over sunny strawberries

Pairing strawberry and coriander for the flavour pairing event They Go Really Well Together#3 has got me excited.
Well...not always. It's true that this dish was the first one that actually made me use fresh coriander leaves, but its seeds have been good friends of mine for a long time. So of course I thought these friends could give me a hand. But when I wanted to make strawberries with coriander-flavoured chocolate...no matter how much ground coriander seeds got mixed into the chocolate, no flavour whatsoever revealed itself. I know chocolate has a strong taste and I know that strawberries in chocolate taste heavenly even when only dipped into crushed almonds and even without doing that, but I got mad at coriander seeds (I got mad at coriander seeds) and just went and bought fresh leaves.

Luckily. Because this dish here ain't no weird experiment! This dish here makes my mouth water like Niagara Falls. I found the idea of adding coconut milk to coriander syrup on the Internet and created a recipe that would suit my taste the most.


Coriander and coconut milk syrup
(about 3 1/2 dl)

2 dl sugar
2 dl water
1/2 dl chopped coriander leaves
1 dl coconut milk

1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.
2. When the syrup starts to boil, remove it from heat and add coriander leaves.
3. Leave the syrup alone to cool for 20 minutes and then strain it.
4. Add coconut milk to the strained syrup and mix well.



This syrup is moderately sweet and if tasted, coconut strikes first, but coriander taste will stay in the mouth afterwards. It isn't overwhelmed by neither of the components. I imagine it on pineapple cake, I imagine it on ice cream, I imagine it with bananas.

And I imagine it on strawberries. You can add whipped cream when serving this dessert, because a strawberry dessert is not a true strawberry dessert without whipped cream!

The flavours of strawberries and the syrup 'go really well together' and complete each other. Who could have guessed? Okay, but who could have guessed them to go that well together? It might be a matter of taste, but I was positively surprised. Coconut had been like a missing link in the combination for me. I believe the syrup is a keeper. On strawberries or on anything.

Now I'd like to remind that the deadline for sending in your strawberry and coriander recipes is on the 1st of July. Hope they go really well together!

TGRWT#3 is here!

This month Martin from Khymos.org asked me to host the fabulous They Go Really Well Together foodblogging event, which has only reached its third round.

Never heard of the event? Really? Or just curious whether it really is what you think it is? Well, TGRWT is about pairing ingredients that have similar volatile aroma compounds. Or in less words - smell alike. It is about bringing together certain ingredients just because chemistry tells you to do so. Why are we talking about smell, but not taste? It's been discovered that only 20% of what we "taste" is perceived by the tongue and 80% by the receptors in the nose. Ingredients that have similar volatile aroma compunds should, in theory, go together well. Wanna test?

Round one was hosted by Martin himself and used garlic, coffee and chocolate, round two was hosted by Tara from Should you eat that and mixed together banana and parsley. This month's theme is my favourite so far. Get ready for cooking with... (can you feel the excitement?)

Strawberry and coriander!


The rules of TGRWT#3 are as follows:

1. Prepare a dish using strawberry and coriander. Use an existing recipe or create your own. You can use whatever ingredients that you like besides these two in you dish.
2. Post about the recipe in your blog (with TGRWT#3 in the title!) and add a photo of it. Include a link to this post and a link to the round-up once it has been posted. Readers will be particularily interested in how the flavour pairing worked out, so make an attempt at describing the succession of taste and aroma and whether or not you liked the dish and why.
3. The deadline for posting is the 1st of July
4. Send me an email at evelingrauen (at) hotmail (dot) com with the following details: your name, the country/city where you are from, the name of your blog, the URL of your post and a picture of your dish to include in the round-up.
5. The round-up will be posted in a few days after the 1st of June
6. If you don't have a blog, but want to take part of the event, just email me your entry with your details and description of the dish - I will gladly include it in the round-up.

Now off you go to buy fresh strawberries and coriander! Or feel free to use coriander seeds, dried strawberries, strawberry juice...whatever you like. And don't forget - let me know how things worked out in the kitchen by the 1st of July.

Still curious?
Learn more about flavour pairings and what Martin has to say about the combination of strawberry and coriander in his blog.

Good luck! Don't burn your fingers!

TGRWT#2 - Bacon wrapped bananas with parsley filling

TGRWT or They Go Really Well Together is a blog event originally created by Martin of Khymos.org and is this time hosted by Tara on her blog Should you eat that. This month's stars banana and parsley are chosen because they have similar volatile aroma compounds - this was probably first discovered by Heston Blumenthal who scented banana while throwing a handful of parsley into rabbit stew.
I love the idea of letting chemistry use its magic in my dishes. And although this is kind of what it does all the time, I took the challenge with curiosity.
Knowing that curiosity killed the cat. Oh my.


I rembebered seeing a recipe for bacon wrapped bananas. How cool is that? Sometimes sweet is just the essence of savoury food. Now I fetched a proper handful of parsley from the garden too to hide it in the bananas.

Bacon wrapped bananas with parsley filling

3 bananas
1 dl chopped parsley
1 1/2 tbsp cream cheese
9 slices of bacon
salt, white pepper

1. Cut the bananas into three and then lenghtwise into two so you have every banana cut into 6.
2. Mix the chopped parsley with cream cheese and season the mixture with salt and white pepper.
3. Divide the mixture between the slices of banana, so it is possible to reunite the halves.
4. Wrap every parsley filled banana section into a slice of bacon and fix with a toothpick.
5. Grill the bananas until bacon is crisp (or almost crisp, as the moisture from the bananas won't let it turn completely crisp). This took me about 15 minutes in the oven.
6. Serve warm.



Now this was interesting! And that in a good way. Bananas are sweet and one can't fight that fact, but sweet is just okay here. Their texture, and of course the influence of bacon around, made me think of potatoes - really sweet...tasting-like-banana potatoes. With the inside a bit creamy.
So it's clear that bacon and banana completed each other's tastes, but what about parsley? Although there seemed to be a whole bunch of it at first, the taste didn't burst in the mouth screaming 'I'm parsley! In a banana!' This dish was rather about banana, with additional parsley too improve the taste, to freshen it. Just as pizza isn't about the marinara sauce, it's about the topping. But thumbs up for the combination from me, I'd say!


I served the bananas over potato puree (you can imagine the overall potato feeling). It was okay, but made me wish for a green salad instead. So as summer is still on its way here, we have time to get our grills ready - this is a dish for a summerly afternoon grill!

What didn't I make?
I didn't make banana bread with parsley.
I didn't bake chicken with bananas under a parsley crust.
I didn't make a fresh green salad with banana and yoghurt-parsley dressing.
I didn't prepare banana soup with parsley (although I did discover I had a recipe for American savoury banana soup)

Vaquelin - how to meet the whole family's sweet needs using just one eggwhite

It's a known fact that it's possible to increase the volume of an eggwhite by beating it for...well, lots of times. According to Hervé This (a French scientist, the founder of molecular gastronomy) it can be increased even more by just adding liquid and some sugar to stabilise the foam and increase the viscosity of water.

I was inspired by a post from blog.khymos.org to make the following experiment.

1 eggwhite
1.5 dl liquid (I used dewberry juice)
2-3 tsp sugar



I considered a suggestion from a comment and first dissolved the sugar in the juice. Then I beated the eggwhites for some minutes with an electric mixer (instead of 5-10 minutes as I didn't use my manual whisk, the wires of which are rather thick and would've made the job too time-consuming). It's important to use a really clean and dry bowl. While still whisking, I started to add juice. Bit by bit. And the volume really did increase, resulting in a decent bowlful of foam.

But that's not it yet. To prepare a fine dessert of this foam, you should heat it up a bit in a microwave to make the proteins set. Some tablespoonfuls at a time is a good way to do it. Hervé This has named this dish Vaquelin after the French chemist Louis Nicholas Vaquelin. As the proteins set really quickly, it's important to heat the foam only during a very short time or it will collapse. That's why I tried it using the 500W setting for different times: 5, 7, 10 and 15 seconds.



It's visible that the structure of the foam doesn't change much after 5 seconds. Although, after 10 seconds it already begins to collapse from the bottom when a spoon is stabbed in. 15 seconds makes the foam collapse entirely.
It seemed to me that the volume kept increasing in the microwave for about 8 seconds, after that it lessened a bit. That's why I used 500w and 8 seconds of cooking time for the final results.

After adding some berries and cinnamon the dessert was ready. With a funny and light texture that melts in the mouth and surprisingly warm for the eaters when served immediately. Still, it's possible to serve it a bit later too, the vaquelin will gladly wait. The dessert is definitely innovative. A good perspective for university students with money problems? Or weight-watchers? It's also suggested to use orange or cranberry juice as the liquid or even red wine. Worth to try anyway!