# Chocolate in savory cooking

Despite being more commonly used in sweet applications, chocolate has been used as an ingredient in savory cooking for over a thousand years. In Europe, chocolate has been used extensively in Italian cuisine since being introduced to Europe, including in lasagna and fried liver. While savory chocolate is today most famously used in mole, it is still an ingredient in some European recipes and used by some chefs.

## History

   Macreuse en ragout au chocolat
   Having properly plucked and cleaned your wigeon, empty and clean it; blanch it on the fire and then pot it, seasoning it with salt, pepper, bay, and a bundle of herbs. Make a little chocolate to toss it in. Meanwhile, prepare a ragout with the liver, mushrooms, morels, meadow mushrooms, truffles, a quarter of a pound of chestnuts, and your wigeon now cooked and laid out on a platter. Serve your ragout over the wigeon, and garnish it as you like.
Inscriptions on a Petén bowl from 400 CE contain a reference to chocolate, referring either to a Mayan mole or a chocolate-flavored tamale. If the former, as of 2024 this would constitute the first known reference to mole. The Aztecs did not use chocolate to flavor cooking; historians Michael and Sophie Coe analogize such use to Christians making coq au vin using sacramental wine. This is despite the dish mole poblano being commonly attributed to the Aztecs. In a popular legend, the use of chocolate in mole is attributed to Mexican nuns in late 17th century Puebla.
Chocolate was considered a pleasant and unremarkable addition to European cuisine as of the mid-17th century. The first appearance in a French recipe is 1691, where it was used in a dish of wigeon (a species of duck). In the recipe, it was not explained how chocolate was made as it was assumed the audience was familiar. During the 17th century, chocolate was a common ingredient in European cooking, particularly in Northern Italy. 18th-century Italian recipes contain chocolate as an ingredient in recipes for pappardelle, fried liver, black polenta and a 1786 manuscript from Macerata records a lasagna sauce containing chocolate, alongside anchovies, walnuts and almonds.

## Modern use

While chocolate is commonly understood as only being appropriate for sweet applications, chocolate is used as an ingredient in several popular recipes and by contemporary chefs. The most popular use of chocolate in savory cooking is in mole. Chocolate is generally used in small quantities to emulsify or, as used by Auguste Escoffier, to give dishes "some silkiness". The small amount added is often emphasized by mole aficionados and recipe writers to try to prevent mole being known as chocolate sauce. Although the chocolate is sometimes intensively prepared by grinding cocoa beans on metate, often in Mexico today pre-prepared ingredients are purchased from supermarkets and combined.
Chocolate is paired with venison and wild boar in Tuscany, including in the sweet-and-sour sauce agrodolce. In Italy more broadly, chocolate is stirred into stews and braises to thicken and add flavor. In Italy and Spain, chocolate is sometimes added to coq au vin. Breadcrumbs are combined with chocolate in migas in some regions of Spain. In western recipes, chocolate has historically often been added to wine sauces, such as the grand veneur [fr]. In the United States, a small amount of unsweetened chocolate is added by some cooks to chili con carne to add "richness, deeper flavor, and umami."
Contemporary chefs have used chocolate in various forms, including white and dark chocolate, as well as using cacao nibs. White chocolate has been used as an ingredient in savory cooking to add gloss and creaminess to sauces, counterbalance saltiness, and bring "richness" to vegetarian dishes. Contemporary chefs using dark chocolate often pair it with savory winter vegetables, such as parsnips and wild mushrooms. Food scientists in the past have advocated pairing chocolate with caviar, roasted cauliflower, and with both garlic and coffee due to shared flavor molecules, but this is no longer regarded as a reliable method for assessing if foods taste good together.