Iron Chef - Week 6

[Yeart Quenn]

Okay, so 'week' isn't exactly working here anymore due to our slacking in the past. And this time it's another longer period, too: We have until midnight of Monday the 21st to make a dish.

And this week's ingredient is:

Chocolate!

(For a real challenge I'd say make it savoury, but I'm not that mean - it's up to you to decide. But it would be interesting.... :p )

[Sanis Prent]

This is going to break me. I hardly ever make sweets, so I've really got to figure out what I want to do.

[Daria Nytherciria]

Reading all of these threads is killing me, but this one is going to be the worst... :cry delicious chocolatey goodness

[Miranda Tarkin]

Well I know in Dinner Impossible, our chef Robert Irvine, had to do a sweet and savory. If he can do it, you can do it! :D

[Park Kraken]

I tried a chocolate pizza the other night at CiCi's Pizza, and it was nasty! They tried to blend in dark German chocolate, milk chocolate, and fudge all together at the same time, and I could only eat one bite before I had to stop.

I think I'll go with an elaborate dessert dish this time around.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Muahahahahahahahaha.

We just made a new batch of chocolate from our cacao trees. I love this challenge.

Muahahahahahahahaha.

[Yeart Quenn]

Bah... I want some of those. Can't you send me some? It would be interesting to see if I could grow a cacao tree somewhere around here...

[Ryan Pode]

Easy peasy.

[Wyl Staedtler]

Question: does unsweetened cocoa count?

[Nya Halcyon]

Sure - any form of cocoa or chocolate.

And, after being determined to do something savoury, I now have to change my mind and make something sweet.... just can't find any decent ideas for savoury dishes....

[Wyl Staedtler]

Excellent. I'm going to do a savoury dish using cocoa and some of the chocolate we just made. It's a complete experiment and hopefully it's edible. ^_^;

[Nya Halcyon]

Coooooool....

[Park Kraken]

Milk Chocolate Rice Cripsy treats

Preparation:

Turn stove on to medium-low heat; place upon it a large pot
Grease at least a 13x9" pan.

Ingredients:
6 Cups Rice Crispy Flakes
1x16oz bag large marshmellows
1x12oz bag Milk Chocolate morsels
1/4 cup of butter or margarine

Preparation:

1) Melt butter in the pot.

2) Once butter is melted, stir in large marshmellows, stirring until almost melted.

3) Add in the morsels, continue stirring until both morsels and marshmellows are melted and well blended.

4) Add in the rice crispy flakes, continue stirring until well blended.

5) Quickly now, remove from heat and spoon into the greased pan, flattening with buttered spoon until evenly distributed.

6) If desired, place into freezer for 3-5 minutes to harden.

Preparation Time: 20 mins approx.

Result:

Well I haven't tried the actual treats yet, but spooning and eating the remains out of the pot produced good and tasty results. Kind of reminds me of the old starcrunch cookies, back before they changed the recipe.

[Ryan Pode]

I think Kraken wins because I didn't make anything with chocolate this weekend. :'(

[Quenn Yeartel]

Uhmmm... we have until next monday :p

[Park Kraken]

Yeah I just went ahead and submitted my entry early.

[Wyl Staedtler]

cocoa-chili seared ono on a bed of baby greens w/herbed brown rice

Ingredients (altered to reflect single portion)

For fish:

1 fresh Ono fillet
3 Tbs chili powder
1 Tbs dark cocoa powder
Course pink salt, to taste (alt. use sea salt)
1/4 tbs freshly ground black pepper
Grated dark chocolate

For salad:

C'mon. You know how to make a salad. I fancied mine up with a little bit of fresh feta, avocado and some toasted pine nuts but really? Just get some baby spinach, a little rocket, arugala, some vine-ripened baby tomatoes and go to town with it.

For vinagrette:

Balsamic vineger
Olive oil
Garlic, bled and chopped.

For rice:

1/4 cup brown rice
little bit of freshly chopped herbs - I used a combination of thyme, sage, and chives. You only need about a Tbs in total.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/food.jpg

1. Mix the chili and cocoa powders together in a shallow dish, then add the freshly ground pepper.

2. Rinse the fish if it needs it, then pat it dry and rub it down with course pink salt - because ono is such a delicate fish, I wanted an equally delicate pre-season, but sea salt would work too.

3. Dredge the fish in the chili-cocoa seasoning. Put olive oil in a pan and heat until it's very hot. When the oil reaches it's smoking point, in goes the fillet.

4. Sear the ono on all sides - it cooks a lot faster than, say, salmon, so watch it carefully.

5. Now, set the fish aside and get your plate ready with salad and rice; the rice is super simple, basically just make it and add some freshly chopped herbs and a little butter to it.

The vinaigrette for the salad is really up to personal tastes. Bleed the garlic and chop it roughly, then add it to some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, altering the proportions as it suits you.

Top the salad with the seared ono.

6. Grate a good quality dark chocolate over the fish - nothing below a 70 % cacao content. I used 85% criollo, from our most recent batch of homemade bars.

This turned out really, really, really yummy. The cocoa-chili mixture had just enough bite to it and the sweetness of the chocolate balanced it out nicely. Definitely making this again.

[Daiquiri]

I think in all fairness, we should (yes, everyone of us!) be sent a sample of both the above mentioned dishes :D

[Quenn Yeartel]

Full Moon Brownies

This week's entry is sort of a rare find. I was originally planning to do something savoury but I couldn't find the chocolate recipe book I once had and web searches turned out a bit repetitive, so in the end I gave up on the idea and started looking for something sweet.
As you might have noticed I've got a thing for spices and herbs, and odd combinations... so I wasn't just going to do an ordinary sweet dish: that's not much of a challenge because I've been baking stuff with chocolate since I was 5 years old. Eventually I found this chocolatier that had strange chocolate variations - and they had a recipe section. And in that recipe section there was this particular recipe.
I'd love to know why these are called Full Moon brownies (other than the sesame seeds being used in certain wiccan rituals perhaps), but they suited my fancy so I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately the chocolate itself (something called Black Pearl chocolate, consisting of the first four ingredients) is only sold in the US so I had to make it up of the single ingredients, adding small amounts until the mix tasted just right - which is not too spicy but not too bland either, to my taste.

Ingredients:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/choco/choc1.jpg

7 oz Dark Chocolate (at least 55% cocoa)
2 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 tsp wasabi paste
1 tsp greshly grated ginger

8 oz unsalted butter
3 tbsp cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1 cup all-purpose flour

Preparation:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/choco/choc2.jpg

Preheating the oven at 350°F, I started out by lining a baking pan (should be 8 inch but mine was a bit larger) with baking paper, making sure to straighten out the edges, then greasing the paper.

The butter I melted in a small pot, then added the chocolate, stirring until thoroughly mixed. To this I added the wasabi paste, the ginger and the sesame seeds as well as the cocoa powder. I had to use cadbury's drinking chocolate instead of proper cocoa powder, since the box I thought I had has apparently vanished from my kitchen. I took the mix off the heat and let it cool a bit.

Meanwhile I mixed the eggs, the sugar, vanilla and salt in a bowl and whisked them at highest speed for about a minute. When the chocolate mix had cooled down I began adding it to the egg mix, making sure to keep on stirring so that the heat from the chocolate wouldn't congeal the egg mix (been there, done that - nasty brownies!). This needs to be mixed well before adding the flour. Once I added the flour I stirred the batter a little more just to make sure it was all mixed in, but the recipe called for not overstirring.

Finally I poured the batter into the prepared pan and baked it in the middle of the oven for 35 minutes. Once done I removed it from the oven, let the brownies sit and cool for about an hour before removing them from the pan.

End result:

http://www.nyahalcyon.net/misc/choco/choc3.jpg

I found brownie heaven! Tomorrow I'm going to fiddle around with finding some kind of white chocolate sauce that complements this. But just as they are these are really really yummy. The mix of the wasabi with the ginger is great, but I think next time I'll add even more ginger. The black sesame seed add an unusual taste - one has the sensation of crunchiness and expects crushed cocoa beans maybe, but instead there's this nutty kind of earthy flavor mixed with something spicy.

[Harold Alexander Truss]

Holy crap, some serious innovation in this thread. I'm sorry I haven't really been able to crank out a presentation this week, but I may come back in a week or two and make something just to say I did.

I'm in agreement with Daiq, I'm really enthralled with these :)

[Quenn Yeartel]

Let me just add that these brownies are an excellent cure to indigestion and heartburn, apparently. Something about the black sesame seeds...? My dad asked me for another batch :lol

[Ilias Nytrau]

Mm, food. Me hungry....:\