Cocoa pasta without cocoa flavor

Does chocolate pasta sound delicious? It was, but it did not taste anything of chocolate. The good taste might have been due to the sauce...

We bought the cocoa pasta from Chocklad-fresteskan at Chokladfestivalen in Stockholm. The cocoa pasta is produced in Germany and imported to Sweden by Oetterli Marketing AB.

A recipe was included in the packaging. It was for ”Fillet of beef with cocoa pasta, vegetables of the season fried in butter and béarnaise sauce”. The recipe can be found on Choklad-Fresterskans homepade (in Swedish).

We decided to invent our own recipe. None of us having dinner felt that béarnaise sauce was complementing chocolate flavored pasta.

We made a sauce with beef, cream, fresh mushrooms, paprika, organic broth, salt, black pepper, soy and Worcestershire sauce. We served the pasta and the sauce with paprika and carrots fried in butter. The meal was very tasty together with a glass of red wine (not for the kids of course).  The package of pasta looked quite big but it was actually not enough. We were four adults and two small (pasta-loving) kids sharing this meal.

The pasta was good and it seemed to be high quality, but none of us could detect any cocoa flavor. It is not that surprising considering that the pasta only contained 2% cocoa. My 6-year had asked for the chocolate pasta for a few weeks before we finally prepared it. He was not disappointed. Pasta is his favorite food and just the thought that it might be chocolate in it made it so much better.

Conclusion: Sure, the pasta was tasty. But it was not good value for the money especially since it did not taste cocoa. I'd rather buy some other high quality pasta at a lower price.