Cooking contest: fish, mushrooms, fennel and chocolate

She Simmers and Curtis Duffy teamed up to host a cooking contest that interested me, so I decided to give it a shot. Contestants are required to create an entrée using fennel (the entire plant), mushrooms (any kind), fish (any one variety), and chocolate (minimum 85% cocoa solids).

I like to cook relatively traditional Italian food, so while others probably looked to the creative sides of their brain while thinking about how to pair chocolate with such savory ingredients, I was directed to a generations-old “secret” among Italian cooks. “Sweet and sour” preparations are popular in many cuisines, with Italian and its “agrodolce” dishes no exception. Typically, these vinegar reductions are sweetened with fruit and/or sugar, then cooked with an array of possible fish, meats or vegetables. Though not all that commonplace, chocolate is not an untraditional addition to these sauces, and good Italian cooks know that chocolate's earthy bitterness serves as an excellent bridge between the sweet and the sour.

With the Italian theme in my head, I set about thinking about how to put a complete entrée together. With such rich, earthy ingredients, tuna came immediately to mind as the right fish choice. It pairs exceptionally well with fennel and mushrooms, and has a strong, meaty taste (and color) to hold up to an ingredient as dark and potent as chocolate. Since I also planned to use red wine as a key flavoring agent, I decided to crust the tuna with black peppercorns to pick up the spiciness of the Valpolicella.

Good Italian cooks hate to waste ingredients, so I appreciated this contest’s insistence that we use every part of the fennel, and I decided to take that further by doing the same with the mushrooms. So, using the fennel stalks and mushroom stems and an herb bundle that included fennel fronds, I made a deeply flavorful vegetable stock that - along with the soaking liquid from some dried porcini - became a base for a red wine risotto to serve with the tuna. A good risotto is almost always finished with a hefty dose of butter to add richness and bring elements of the dish into harmony. I used some butter too, but replaced some of it with chopped 99% cacao chocolate, added off the heat to provide that same richness, and also enhance the earth and fruit flavors in the wine. I also chose a young Pecorino Romano to add mild, creamy flavor and saltiness that I think plays well with chocolate.

Strong red wine, chocolate, mushrooms, dark tuna flesh: these are strong, meaty, earthy flavors. To bring the entree into balance, some bright acidity would be needed, and this is where the fennel agrodolce came into play. I cooked the fennel slowly in butter until it was quite soft, then added white balsamic vinegar and a touch of sugar, and let that reduce until the vinegar was almost cooked off. I melted in just a touch of chocolate to finish it.

My wife declared the result fantastic: familiar yet like nothing else she'd ever tasted. I too thought this was a very nice dish, with the disparate-seeming ingredients achieving great balance in the end.


Here are some pictures.

Tuna, fennel, criminis and Sharffenberger unsweetened chocolate with 99% cocoa solids:



Stock for risotto: fennel stalks, mushroom stems, onion, herb bundle (fennel fronds and thyme), peppercorns:



Garlic (yes, garlic with chocolate!) getting started for the mushrooms that will go into risotto:



Grated pecorino romano and shaved chocolate (will finish the risotto):



First 1/2 cup of Valpolicella added to Vialone Nano rice:



Risotto finishing touches: sautéed mushrooms, romano, chocolate, fennel fronds and butter:



Chopped golden raisins added to sautéing fennel:



Chocolate stirred in (after sugar and white balsamic cooked until evaoprated):



Here's the finished fennel agrodolce:



Raw tuna rolled in crushed black peppercorns and salt:



Pepper-crusted tuna after a quick sear:




Pepper crusted tuna, red wine and mushroom risotto, fennel agrodolce:

Where's that "like" button...oh.

When I first saw the title, after thinking to myself "what an interesting group of ingredients," my first thought was semi-traditional also: I was thinking some kind of chocolate-based mole, probably over a whitefish. Fitting fennel and mushrooms into that mix might not be traditional, but wouldn't be completely out there, either - I liked your pairing of fennel and raisins.

Glad you found your tuna!

Lovely menu! I had some zucchini sauteed in white balsamic at Spacca Napoli last night and loved it...would've been even better in your preparation

Mhays wrote: my first thought was semi-traditional also: I was thinking some kind of chocolate-based mole, probably over a whitefish....

Mole crossed my mind too, though I was thinking of the same tuna with it rather than a whitefish. In the end I went the Italian route because I thought using red wine would help me bridge from the chocolate to the mushrooms, and I wasn't sure how I would do that in a Mexican-themed dish.

Mhays wrote:I liked your pairing of fennel and raisins.

Thanks MIchele. I use golden raisins a lot in cooking. Sometimes I chop them really fine so that people have no idea that they're in whatever dish they're eating. Raisins add a pleasing, natural sweetness that works well with many things.

So, who won the contest?

stevez wrote:So, who won the contest?

Winner will be announced Wednesday. It's just a written recipe/ approach to ingredients contest, not a live judging.

Kennyz wrote:

stevez wrote:So, who won the contest?

Winner will be announced Wednesday. It's just a written recipe/ approach to ingredients contest, not a live judging.

Well, I have to say yours looks good on paper...er screen.

I think this sounds like a great idea for a dinner party activity...

Kenny,

That looks really nice! I think you hit it out of the park with that dish. Same of my favorite things, The tuna is perfectly seared and lovely Risotto! Good luck!
Danny

Kennyz wrote: Winner will be announced Wednesday. It's just a written recipe/ approach to ingredients contest, not a live judging.

Kenny,

Your recipe reads and looks inventive and delicious. If you need an outside taste opinion I will make myself available.

Enjoy,
Gary

'twas fun, but I did not place in the top 3. The winners did a nice job, and all at the top had at least two elements I was missing: better plating and better photography. Perhaps not surprisingly given Chef Duffy's penchant for modern techniques, the top 2 places also had things like "gelee" and "soil", which are not part of my typical cooking repertoire. Nonetheless, both of the top 2 dishes were impressive, and I accept with grace my loss to them. I have a problem with the third place winner though - she copped out on the rules. The contest said you were supposed to use chocolate with 85% cocoa solids, which she did essentially by turning it into a set of serving bowls that don’t appear intended for eating. An admittedly photogenic dish that should have been disqualified, in my opinion.

kudos for you for tossing your hat in the ring. You never know unless you try.

I think your dish looked great.

Looks like you got an honorable mention, though. Congratulations!