Dark Chocolate... Enchilada Sauce!

Hmm...  When I first heard about putting dark chocolate in my enchilada sauce I cringed.  It sounded disgusting.  I mean, I love chocolate.  I mean I really, really, LOVE chocolate!  And I've become accustom to yummy, good-quality, dark chocolate.  It's the best.  But in my enchiladas?


The idea came as I was searching the internet for a good sauce recipe.  Once such recipe had an ounce of dark chocolate in it.  Then I found another one with it as well.  And another.  There had to be something to it.  Since I didn't have time to make it totally 100% from scratch (i.e. roast chiles, cook down fresh tomatoes, etc) I went with THIS RECIPE.  Only I made a few changes and decided to give this dark chocolate idea a try.


Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup chile powder
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp fresh minced garlic
1 6 oz can organic tomato paste
enough water to make 2 1/2 cups liquid when added to paste
1 oz good dark chocolate
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine tomato paste and water. Set aside.  Heat oil in pan to medium heat.  Add chile powder and flour and whisk constantly until blended while avoid burning. (I burnt my first batch and had to completely tossed it.)  Slowly add the tomato mixture to the pan.  Add in the rest of the ingredients.  Bring to a boil and then simmer.  Viola!

Use on enchiladas or make an enchilada soup!