Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Cocoa Rubbed Pork with Chocolate Barbecue Sauce


This bbq sauce is seriously going into rotation. Even before I added the chocolate it was amazing, so feel free to do it either way. This is the only recipe I followed for this dish, with the small tweak of the cilantro. Because I know not everyone is a fan, I just added a sprig on top for garnish.

Dark Chocolate BBQ Sauce
1 tablespoon butter, soft
4 each garlic cloves, minced½ each Spanish onion, small dice
2 each Roma tomatoes, stem removed, small dice
1 ½ oz. dark brown sugar
4 teaspoons ancho chili powder
4 oz. apple cider vinegar (I had orange muscat vinegar on hand, so that's what I used. I think the orange flavor was a nice addition)
8 oz. barbeque sauce
14 oz. vegetable stock
¼ teaspoon cumin, ground
¼ cinnamon, ground
1/8 teaspoon cloves, ground
2 oz. SCHARFFEN BERGER (or any good quality) 82% dark chocolate
2 tablespoons cilantro, fresh, chopped
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper, fresh ground

Melt butter in small sauce pan over medium heat. Add garlic and onion, sauté 5 minutes until golden brown. Add tomatoes, stir, and sauté an additional 5 minutes. Add sugar and chili powder, mix well, and cook for 5 minutes. Add vinegar, reduce for 5 minutes, mixture should have a paste consistency. Add sauce, stock, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, salt and pepper. Mix well. Bring to a boil and reduce to a slow simmer for 30 minutes.
Add SCHARFFEN BERGER chocolate and cilantro; allow to simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove sauce from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Puree sauce, strain to remove any little bits if you'd like a smoother sauce, transfer to a clean container and cool.

For best results, refrigerate for 12 hours before using. Reheat when ready to use.

Cocoa Rubbed Pork Loin
I'd really recommend asking your butcher to french the loin for you, doing it yourself takes some time and really sharp knives.
I had a four pound bone in pork loin, and frenched it myself. It wasn't as clean as it could've been, but it was my first time.
Once it was frenched, I patted my rub (recipe below) all over it. I placed it in a shallow roasting pan on a bed of quartered onion and a few cloves of garlic with about half a cup of stock, bone side up.
I then roasted it at 350 for an hour - an hour and a half, until my thermometer told me it was at 160. I then removed it from the oven, covered it with foil to keep it warm and allow it to finish cooking to a temp of 170. Once it had been out of the oven for 15-20 minutes or so, I sliced each chop for plating.

Rub
1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghiradelli)
1/4 Kosher salt
2 + tsp crushed chili flakes (I used two, but think I might up it a bit next time)
1/2 tsp cloves
2 tbsp sugar

I added all of these ingredients to a small jar with a lid and then shook to combine.

Smashed Sweet Potatoes
3 lbs cooked sweet potatoes (boil, nuke, however you do it)
1 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cumin
I may have added some clove too, I can't remember
unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

Roughly smash up your potatoes while still hot, add other ingredients and mix to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. Seriously, don't skip this part since I'm only guessing at what I did.

For plating, spoon a large scoop of sweet potatoes on to plate, sprinkle potatoes and plate with cocoa powder. Nestle a pork chop on top of the potatoes and pour 1/4 cup or so of bbq sauce on top. Garnish with cilantro.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want to bathe in that sauce.

SonnyB said...

Did the BBQ recipe come from here?

http://www.allchocolate.com/recipes/savory-chocolate-bbq.aspx

Seems extremely similar, not that I'm complaining or anything...

Rogue Designs said...

It sure did SonnyB; I linked to it on the first three words of the post.
I am really diligent about linking to my source recipes, but thanks for looking out!

SonnyB said...

I didn't see that thanks!

There's 8oz of BBQ sauce mentioned. Do you use something like a basic Kraft bottled sauce as the mother sauce here, or something more exotic? How did you find the results? Since the post is a year old I hope you still remember. :)

Hopefully I can do the sauce and rub tonight, then cook the roast and side dish tomorrow. Sitting the the fridge with the rub on usually helps absorb the flavor into the meat. BBQ sauces like the time for the flavors to come together as the recipe suggests. It's a win-win!

Rogue Designs said...

Yeah, it was whatever I had in my fridge so it was probably some supermarket brand - Kraft, Woody's, Bull's Eye. . something like that.
The results were fab - I was robbed on this competition! ;o)
Let me know how it turns out for you!

Rogue Designs said...

You reminded me that I never posted a photo too, so thanks!

SonnyB said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SonnyB said...

It was a hit! The sauce come out nicely. It's not any sweeter, and perhaps a little less sweet, than most other BBQ sauces. The meat was well cooked, moist and tender. The sweet potatoes went well. I served it with Sam Adam's Cherry Wheat Ale. For dessert we made a sweet potato pie with some extra sweet potatoes and served it with whipped topping a dusting of cocoa powder and pumpkin spice latte.