Chocolate, in savoury dishes, it’ll never catch on???

We talked exclusively with local Masterchef quarter-finalist Mike Williams about his secrets for using chocolate in cooking.

When most people imagine chocolate, they usually think ‘sweet treat’, but Mike, who is based in Beverley too, loves mixing it with a variety of foods, in really unexpected ways.

A helicopter avionics engineer by day, his real passion is all things food and he’s built a good friendship with all of us at White Rabbit since he took part in the popular TV series in Spring 2016.

In fact, he’s such a fan of chocolate, we’ve decided to collaborate over a special pop-up restaurant. We’ll be presenting a one-off, four-course taster menu at Elwell’s restaurant at Flemingate on Saturday 21st October from 6pm. Click here for more details.

That extra something

Chocolate isn’t just fantastic for sweet treats and baking, according to Mike. He believes its potential for jujjing up a whole range of dishes is – almost – endless.

“You can put cocoa powder into chilli and it gives it a kind of depth of flavour and savoury sweet element that really intensifies it,” he explained.

“We all develop habits in our cooking and eating, but I really like to try new flavours and experiment, and a lot of things that you might at first think are a bit weird, can really work.

“It’s all about being brave enough to try out different mixes of flavours and ingredients, to discover what works. 

“Imagine anchovies and lamb as an example. Anchovies are a fantastic base ingredient that can really make foods like lamb sing, but you don’t know they’re there – they don’t give food a fishy taste, just a delicious saltiness and natural seasoning. It’s similar with chocolate.”

But you do have to choose your chocolate ingredients carefully.

“Chocolate in its purest, rawest, form works best,” he added.

“For example, the origins couvertures chocolates stocked by White Rabbit which are just one step away from the original cocoa beans.

“Dark chocolate is also best because white or milk chocolate are a bit too sweet to add to savoury dishes.

“Chocolate vinaigrettes are another fantastic way of incorporating chocolate and it adds a sweet note to the sharpness of the vinegar which is just delicious.

“Not only that, but it can help to really intensify a meat stock.”

Mike’s culinary curiosity knows no bounds, it seems.

“Chocolate makes a fantastic rich sauce to accompany venison,” he continued.

“Similarly, you can roast a meat joint and use the scrapings from it to make a meat stock.

“Then, adding chocolate really sharpens it up,” he added.

There are limits to his chocolatey food imagination, though, and Mike draws the line at fish. “I can’t think of anything that would work with fish. I’ve never actually tried it but chocolate and fish isn’t something I would put on a plate together,” he said.

Like anything in cooking, using the best quality chocolate is very important to achieving the tastiest results. “You get a lot of additives in a normal bar of chocolate which affect the flavour, which is why it’s good to visit a place like White Rabbit and source purer chocolate ingredients.”

 

A real treat in store

Mike will be using his seemingly endless inspiration to produce a unique taster menu for our pop-up restaurant, mixing and matching our chocolate with different types of food.

Every course will feature chocolate in some way, with some of our award-winning truffles as the stars of the show.

“The idea is to pick some of White Rabbit’s best-known chocolates and also look to some of the international origins of some of their raw couverture ingredients, like Colombia and South Africa, to give each course a really exciting theme and flavour,” said Mike.

“Perhaps the most famous White Rabbit truffle is the blackcurrant and juniper, which won a Great Taste three-star award and Golden Fork nomination in 2014. So, we’ll make this a showcase for our main course, featuring its core flavours.

“For example, juniper immediately shouts gin and venison, which are ingredients that really work with it. And then for the blackcurrant we can have a blackcurrant coulis. Basically, we will pick specific chocolates for each course and bring out their flavour profiles in creative ways, whether they be citrus or a little hint of tobacco.

“We’ll also have two desserts during the tasting session, a citrus one and a big, showcase dessert at the end.”

As well as the opportunity to enjoy this mouth-watering fare, Mike will be talking diners through the process of creating the menu, the chocolates featured, their taste profiles and how to get the most out of the eating experience.

One you can try at home - Mike’s chocolate vinaigrette recipe

• First, melt about 25 grams of fine, dark chocolate. For example, you could use one of White Rabbit’s couvertures, or part of a high cocoa content bar
• Then, whisk the melted chocolate to emulsify it into a sauce
• Add three parts oil to one part acidity. You can use cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar or standard white wine vinegar. Your oil could be extra virgin or ordinary olive oil, vegetable or rape seed. Each ‘part’ should be roughly equivalent to one large table spoon
• Add your oil and vinegar mix to your emulsified chocolate and whisk it. Once it’s mixed into the sauce, it will maintain its liquid consistency.
• Lastly, tweak to taste.

“You get that acidity like you do with fish and chips when you add the vinegar, you get a bit of a chocolate balance at the back of it, it might sound really odd but the balance of rich flavours really works,” said Mike.

A gateway to Mike’s next exciting challenge

Since all the glitz of Masterchef, Mike has gone back to his primary career as a helicopter engineer, but his love of great food continues to be his driving force.

He’s working on a new venture with his brother, Chris Williams, called ‘Crackers Street Food’. The pair will be converting a horse box into a high-end mobile cheese-themed food outlet, and touring the region – and then the country – with it. They plan to serve everything from top notch cheese toasties to savoury cheesy donuts and salads covered in burrata.

“As well as being a great showcase for White Rabbit, I’m really looking forward to starting to get my food out there again.

“It couldn’t come at a better time for me, with our plans for the new cheese-themed business.

I’m hoping to really develop that alongside my day job – and maybe run some more pop-up restaurants as well under the ‘Crackers’ brand.”

Masterchef has really paved the way for Mike to pursue this second, foodie career.

“I was only in it to the knock-out stages but it has given me that launch, and I now feel part of the food community in Beverley and in Hull as well. People recognise me from the series and chat to me about food, so it just feels like the right time to launch Crackers and see if we can add to the region’s growing food culture. We have some great street food businesses out there like ‘Shoot The Bull’ to look to for inspiration.

“It’s exciting times, I’m balancing this with a full-time job as a helicopter engineer, working shifts down in Norwich looking after the helicopters that carry rig workers out into the North Sea, but my dream is to one day concentrate on food full-time.”

Mike started his career with a 10-year stint in the Army, where he learned his skills as an aviation engineer.

Our tickets have all sold out for this first event, but we plan to run more, so if you’re inspired by what you’ve read and would like to put your name down the future, email us at [email protected] or call us on (01482) 679325. Also, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d simply like and advice on any of the ingredients he mentions in this interview.