At Cooking for a Classic competition, chocolate -- this time Yoo-hoo -- is a winner

Two chefs wrangled octopus as an entree Monday night in the first semifinal competition in the Cooking for a Classic.

Teddy Diggs, of the soon-to-open Coronato Pizza in Carrboro, faced off with Matt Hannon, of Ashten's in Southern Pines, serving up six dishes – an appetizer, entree and dessert apiece – in the cooking competition that benefits the Lucy Daniels Center.

In each round of Cooking for a Classic, chef teams learn their ingredient challenge in the morning, then prepare meals to be judged by ticketed guests that night.

Diggs and Hannon and the pro judges on hand Monday night all expressed surprise at the challenge presented by octopus. The chefs were asked to incorporate it, along with clams, sunchoke, Yoo-hoo chocolate drink and chicharrones, into their recipes.

As usual, the cooking competition offered a vocabulary lesson for the foodies in attendance (More on that in a minute). Overall, it served to surprise and delight pro judges – including Walter Royal of the Angus Barn – and diners alike.

The first challenge is a meatless appetizer, and both chefs offered pasta variations. Diggs' sunchoke farafelle was rich with smoked walnut pesto. Hannon answered with agnolotti, a tiny ravioli-like pouch filled with a powerful mix of wild mushrooms and goat cheese.

Fire in the Triangle cooking competition winner Dean Thompson, Concord Hospitality chef and a judge for Monday's event, praised the effort from both teams that went into hundreds of hand-formed pieces of pasta.

Both teams chose to grill the octopus in their entrees, but took very different directions with the accompanying flavors.

Hannon's was served first, a Mexican-theme with Yoo-hoo in the mole sauce and bright green chimichurri sauce on the plate.

"I never cooked octopus much," Hannon said after the fact. He pointed out, to laughs, that Ashten's focuses on local ingredients, and that octopus are rare in Southern Pines.

Still he succeeded, earning praise from Royal, who called it "an outstanding dish."

Diggs answered by leaning in to the seafood nature of the octopus, adding clams and a thick fish broth to a presentation that saw the main protein skewered on a rosemary stalk.

My tablemates agreed this entree was the star. "It has that umph," one said, calling it "both unusual and beautiful."

Those in the room who had tried octopus before were delighted by the meaty texture of both entrees. Thompson noted that a few seconds shorter or longer would compromise that perfect preparation.

Then it was time for dessert, and the chefs again took different directions.

Hannon went savory, with a rum cake accented with basil anglaise and pistachio. Those flavors were a bit too bold for some of my fellow diners.

"It could be amazing," one said before the plates arrived.

Afterward: "I don't know how I feel about this."

It was a creative but risky mix that some found too odd to finish.

Diggs doubled down on Yoo-hoo, layering bitter, sweet, fluffy and dense chocolate flavors in a torta with horchata gelato. He described it as "everything a can of Yoo-hoo can do for you."

This is where the vocabulary lesson kicked in for my table. We had to Google horchata – a creamy rice/milk with a touch of cinnamon.

In evaluating the desserts, Thompson cited a truism of competition cooking: "Chocolate rarely loses."

In what organizers said was the closest vote over three years of Cooking for a Classic competitions, Diggs edged Hannon to advance to next Monday's final competition.

The winner will claim either the "classic," a restored 1981 Jeep Scrambler, or $15,000.