TGRWT #15 - ChocoLox

I almost missed out on this round of TGRWT - They Go Really Well Together - because I forgot to check out Khymos for a few weeks. I finally took a look last weekend, and found out that round 15 ends on March 1st. At first I thought I just didn't have enough time to play around and come up with something, but then a social event at work provided me the perfect excuse.

The idea behind TGRWT is to challenge food bloggers (and anyone, really) to create a dish that combines two unlikely foods that happen to share a volatile compound, and thus chemically speaking *should* make a good flavor pairing. This round (hosted by Roberto N. from the Mex Mix blog), the pairing challenge is Cold Smoked Salmon and Dark Chocolate.

Given my time constraints (I had to get whatever I was going to make done on Wednesday night, after work, and after making dinner), I decided to keep it simple. Rather than try to bridge the two ingredients with a mix of other things, I realized I could just try mixing them as is - dark chocolate and cold smoked salmon. Suddenly, the name 'ChocoLox' popped into my head. I have to admit, when I came up with the catchy name for them, I was committed.

I used some nice lox, which I cut into small slices, laid in a Pyrex dish, and then popped in the freezer. Since lox is so delicate, I thought that freezing it a bit would make them easier to work with and ensure they held a flat shape. Then I chopped up 4oz of unsweetened 99% cacao dark chocolate from Scharffen Berger, and melted it down in a double boiler. I tasted the melted chocolate, and it was very bitter, so I panicked and tossed in maybe a 1/2 ounce or less of Hershey's Special Dark chips that I had around, which is only 45% cacao. Once it was just melted, I tried to temper it by working 2/3 of the chocolate with a spatula on the back of a sheet pan, then returning it to the bowl to remelt. As you can see, I need a little instruction and better precision (and tools) in that area, given that my final chocolates are far from shiny. Once the chocolate was melted, I dipped the frozen lox slices in to coat them, then let them cool on some waxed paper.

The consensus from my adventurous coworkers was they were good (they ate them all), but the smoked salmon definitely didn't shine through enough, given the thickness of the chocolate. I was relying on the saltiness of the fish to balance the bitter and sweet of the chocolate, but the balance was off because the chocolate layer was too thick and/or the fish was too thin. Salt was suggested by a few people. We thought a little Alaea salt or Fleur de sel sprinkled on the chocolate before it set completely would be nice, giving the necessary salt along with some texture, though perhaps Kosher salt would be most appropriate. We also thought rolling the salmon into balls or even whipping it into a mouse, freezing it, and then dipping in chocolate would be reduce the surface to volume ratio a bit, diminishing the chocolate needed to coat the fish... or I thought they might be good with the chocolate painted on only one side of the frozen fish, sprinkled with salt, and then served just as the fish came to room temperature and the chocolate set.

A full roundup of all the TGRWT #15 contributors is posted at Mex Mix.