Savoury dishes – particularly hot and spicy ones – can be enhanced with a bit of chocolate. Well, Vianne Rocher certainly thinks so

Any film about food arouses interest. A film about chocolate will have lines of drooling groupies queuing round the block. Foodies salivated over the stream of courses in ‘Babette’s Feast’, but after watching ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ once at the flicks, rented it over and over again, to glean the secret ingredients of dishes that had its protagonists dazed with passion. How do I know? I just do.

Lasse Hallström’s latest film, ‘Chocolat’, looks like it’s about to cause a similar stir among lovers of the cocoa bean. It dwells, lovingly, on the power of chocolate, carefully doctored at the hands of Juliette Binoche, to melt even the most uptight citizen of the small French town, into which she and her daughter have blown in their Red Riding Hood cloaks. Through the goodies from her exotic chocolaterie, the repressed townspeople rediscover a lust for life. Something in the truffles brings the zing back into one couple’s sex life. A birthday roast chicken smothered in gleaming chocolate sauce is eaten in glazed-eyed rapturous silence by the guests. Into her cups of hot chocolate Binoche slips a little chilli – a potent combination and one that goes back to the Aztecs.

Chocolate, as the townsfolk of the sleepy hamlet soon discover, is a powerful thing. It contains phenylethylamine, the same chemical stimulated naturally in the brain by falling in love. Chilli, too, is an aphrodisiac, and both are essential ingredients in mole (pronounced molay), the sauce that, when covering turkey, makes one of the most respected ceremonial dishes in Mexico.

If you’re worried about the effect of putting chocolate into savoury dishes, don’t be. Take a leaf out of Ms Binoche’s book and give it a try. Chocolate in any stewed meat dish is unidentifiable, providing less of a sweetness than a silkiness. It’s often the secret addition to Texan chilli con carne (an altogether different dish from the Mexican ‘chillies and meat’). And actually very little is used.

Next page: recipes

Mole Sauce
Serves 4

450g tin peeled tomatoes
2 tsp dried red chilli pepper flakes
1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tbsp sesame seeds
75g almonds
40g raisins
¼ tsp each ground clove, cinnamon, ground coriander, ground cumin
1 tbsp water
2 tbsp vegetable oil
225ml chicken stock
40g bittersweet chocolate

1. In a food processor, put 4 of the tinned tomatoes with the chilli pepper, onion, garlic, sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, cloves, cinnamon, coriander and cumin, and blitz till smooth.
2. Add the water and blitz again. Heat the oil in a pan, then carefully pour in the mixture.
3. Cook, stirring, for 10 minutes, then add chicken stock and chocolate. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.
4. Serve as a sauce over chicken, turkey, duck breasts, or pork tenderloin.

Filete Enchocolatado
(Beef in Chocolate Sauce)
Serves 4

900g beef tenderloin
3 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
150ml white wine
275ml water
25g unsweetened chocolate
2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Rub salt and pepper into the beef and brown all over in the butter.
2. Add the onion, garlic, wine and water. Cover and simmer over a low heat for 15 minutes. Add chocolate and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes more, then turn off heat and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
3. To serve, slice the meat, pour the sauce over it and sprinkle with parsley.

Next page: Chilli Con Carne Con Chocolada

Chilli Con Carne Con Chocolada
Serves 4

1kg onions, peeled and chopped
oil, for frying
500g mince
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tsp each ground coriander, ground cumin, oregano
2 large tins red kidney beans
3 bottles chilli seasoning – not chilli powder
1 small tin sweet red peppers (optional)
110g chopped button mushrooms
1 large tin tomatoes
110g tin tomato purée
275ml tarragon vinegar
110g dark cooking chocolate

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2. Fry the onions in some oil in a large pan till golden, then drain into a deep, lidded ovenproof dish. Fry the mince, garlic and spices in oil till browned, then mix in the onions.
3. Add beans and their liquid and the remaining ingredients, stir and cover with water. Cover dish and bake for 1 ½ hours. Even better made the day before and reheated. And great at large parties.