Pork stew with cumin, peas, arugula and dark chocolate

We all know how well dark chocolate goes with pork, right? For this reason, when I was developing my "Cooking with Chocolate" class, I decided to feature a pork stew as the meat-course of the evening. To have the best end result, I needed a cut of pork that would stay moist during braising and that didn't require that long to cook (time limitations are unfortunately paramount in hands-on cooking classes). I resorted then to my favorite cut: pork shoulder. I really love its balance of fatty richness and lean tender meat. I usually find it in the form of steaks and oftentimes, I simply love to pan sear them and then smother in strong extra virgin olive oil and zingy lemon juice or better even, lemon salt. A treat for those nights when I am too bored to cook anything more involved.
In the recipe I developed for the cooking class, I decided to use the earthy aroma of roasted cumin as the spice of choice to lace this stew. I chose peas to be the vegetable component since I wanted a little more sweetness in the final dish, beside they pair greatly with cumin.
The dish needed a little vibrancy though and so, to keep it simple but still flavorful, I decided to add some arugula to it. I really like the peppery and slight bitter notes of this leafy green, it really cuts through the richness of the stew.

Dark chocolate is a great ingredient for savory dishes and I really had fun coming up with recipes featuring it like the one I am proposing you today.

Castagnaccio - Tuscan chestnut "cake"

Chestnut flour is still an unusual ingredient in our kitchens, unfortunately.
To mill chestnut into flour, they are first dried over wood fire and this imparts the resulting product with a delicate and distinctive smoky aroma that make this flour pretty unique.
Being a nut´s flour, it doesn't contain gluten and so it is an useful ingredient for gluten-free pantries.
In Italy, chestnut flour is a traditional ingredient of the center-north portion of the peninsula. In Tuscany, notably, chestnut flour is used in a savory-sweet cake called Castagnaccio (castagna being the Italian for chestnut).
This cake is usually enriched with flavorful extra-virgin olive oil, pine nuts and rosemary but the main variation point in local recipes revolve around the use of cocoa powder in it.
Chestnut flour, with its deep rich sweet and smoky aromas, is just a perfect companion to chocolate and the use of a little cocoa powder in the Castagnaccio can only do it good, in my opinion.
I personally, simply adore rosemary in my Castagnaccio. When baked to crispy perfection, this herb lends its heady green-field aromas to this earthy densely satisfying cake; a perfect reminder of Tuscan sunbathed fields.
Try it once, and you will be hooked. You have been warned!