And the Winner Is.....

I received lots of great submissions for the Savory Chocolate Contest - thanks to everyone who took the time to submit their work and ideas!

The winner was very hard for me to choose, for a variety of reasons.  We had some fantastic food photography, some excellent creative ideas that made me drool, as well as some interesting storytelling.

I gravitated toward a submission that I very much identified with.  For those of you who read this site frequently and/or cook as often as I do,  cooking is often a labor of love.  As much as we are in the 30 Minute Rachel Ray era, great food doesn't just fall from the sky.  It takes effort to create great food.  In fact, the best food often requires planning, attention to detail, trial and error and sometimes, even 13 hours of effort. The current foodie event I am working on will require about 72 hours of straight work, with breaks only for sleeping and minimal eating.

That's why I have chosen Jake Lemkowitz the winner of the Foodie NYC Savory Chocolate Contest.  I admire Jake's passion and commitment to go all out in the pursuit of great BBQ.  I also enjoyed his experimenting with chocolate and BBQ, something that sounds incredibly delicious to me (smoke, spice, dark chocolate, ribs....).  Jake did his BBQ the right way - low and slow.  And he'd learned from mistakes with temperature from previous BBQ experiences.  Not to mention 13 hours of BBQing in the snowy winter weather of Ohio - god bless him. 

Jake, you (or a friend) are the winner of a night of enjoying the fruits of my labor as well as lots of great wine at a foodie event of your choice. 

Here's Jake's story in his own words, as well as a picture of his creation.

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Jake Lemkowitz - Chocolate BBQ Brisket

"I'd like to enter the Foodie Savory Chocolate Contest with a recipe for a chocolate infused barbecue brisket that I made for the Superbowl.

The day before I made a dry rub out of salt, pepper, a lot of chile powder,coffee grounds, Hershey's cocoa powder, and powdered mustard. I rubbed it into the two six pound slabs of brisket. Then I let the meat sit in the refrigerator overnight. When I woke up the next morning, there was a blizzard outside my window (I live in Ohio), but I decided to bravely press  on with the most intrepid winterbeque of all time.

In the freezing cold, I managed to light some mesquite coals. I added woodchips and began (indirectly) cook the brisket at around nine a.m. While the coals were still heating up, I made a mop to baste the brisket with over the course of the day. I used a few cups of leftover turkey stock, a teaspoon of bacon fat, some of the dry rub, a shot of whiskey, and a whole bar of Lindt dark chocolate. I boiled it down a little, and then kept the mop warm on the stovetop, basting the brisket with it every forty-five minutes or so.

Usually my biggest problem with barbecue is that it's hard for me to keep the coals cool enough so that the meat doesn’t get dry. Now with the snow storm going on outside, my coals wouldn’t stay lit! It was truly an epic battle, mankind versus the elements. There were moments where I thought that I didn't have the energy to go on, but in the end, mankind, and brisket, prevailed. By the time the brisket was finally ready to eat, it had been barbecued and basted with the chocolate mop continuously for just over THIRTEEN AND A HALF HOURS!

The chocolate worked amazingly well with the flavor of the mesquite smoke and the spicy dry rub. It not only helped the brisket achieve a beautiful caramelized outer crust, but it greatly intensified the flavor of the meat which came out juicy and perfect. The recipe was born when we decided to use cocoa powder as a replacement for brown sugar in the dry rub. After that, adding a chocolate bar into to the mix seemed only natural. To give the flavors their space, we  took out all garlic and onion flavors. That kind of stuff is usually standard in brisket, but the taste ended up being A LOT more dynamic without them.

Anyways, it was the best BBQ I've ever made, and considering the weather and the amount of meat, it was also by far the most ambitious.  Maybe not the greatest food photography (Styrofoam plate of Polish sausage in the background), but you get the idea. Keep up the good work!"