Becca and Nick
Chicken Mole
Phil and Sarah
Chicken Mole. That is like a THING. Like people work for years to perfect the perfect Mole and then pass down their special recipe from generation to generation, right?
I was impressed by both Albin/Jocie and Galen/Chloe just jumping in there and going for it. Ok. Well, with a recipe like Mole Poblano: Yes You Can! I guess I can. I actually really like this recipe for two reasons. 1. It had the most ingredients I saw in any recipe (which made me feel like I was doing it right because Mole is supposed to be super complicated) but, 2. The actual process was actually pretty simple.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup lard vegetable shortening or vegetable oil
- 3 ounces chiles anchos about 6 or 7, stemmed and seeded
- 3 ounces chiles pasillas about 12 or 13, stemmed and seeded
- 3 ounces chiles mulatos about 6, stemmed and seeded
- 1/3 ounces dried chipotle chiles about 4, stemmed and seeded
- 1/2 white onion about 1/2 pound, roughly chopped
- 3 garlic cloves peeled and roughly chopped
- 3 tablespoons raw almonds with skin
- 3 tablespoons raw shelled peanuts
- 3 tablespoons raisins
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
- 4 tablespoons sesame seeds
- 1/2 cup reserved chile seeds
- 5 whole cloves stemmed
- 1/4 teaspoon anise seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- 1 stick true or ceylon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/8 teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1/2 pound roma tomatoes about 2 , charred or roaste
- 1/3 pound tomatillos about 2, husked, rinsed, charred/roasted
- 2 corn tortillas sliced into 8 pieces
- 1/2 bolillo telera or baguette, about 2 ounces, thickly sliced (if it is a couple days old, better)
- 6 ounces Mexican style chocolate or bittersweet chocolate
- 5 cups chicken broth plus 4 more to dilute later on
- 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt or more to taste
- 1/2 cup sesame seeds toasted, to sprinkle at the end
To Prepare
- In a large extended casserole dish set over medium high heat, add 1/2 cup lard, oil, or vegetable shortening. Once hot, about 2 minutes later, add the chiles in 2 or 3 batches and saute, stirring often, and being careful not to let them completely burn. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a mixing bowl as you move along.
- In the same oil, add chopped onion and garlic and saute for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, until they soften and release their aroma. Stir in the almonds, peanuts, raisins and pumpkin seeds, and let them cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Stir in the sesame seeds, reserved chile seeds, stemmed cloves, anise seeds, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, cinnamon stick, ground allspice, thyme and marjoram. Stir frequently and let it all cook for 3 to 4 more minutes, stirring often. Make room again, and add the tortilla and bread pieces along with the tomatoes and tomatillos. Let it all cook for a couple minutes.
- Incorporate the already sauteed chiles and pour in the chicken broth. Stir and once it comes to a simmer, add the chocolate pieces and the salt. Mix well, and let it simmer for 12 to 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, cover and let the mix rest for 1/2 hour, so the chiles can completely soften.
- In batches, puree the mixture in the blender or food processor until smooth. You can store this mole, covered, in the refrigerator for up to a month, or freeze it for up to a year.
- When ready to eat, dilute a cup of mole with 1/2 cup chicken broth in a saucepan and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. Serve over cooked chicken or turkey and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds on top.
And I really did just that. Any subs? Really the only thing is I used turkey stock instead of chicken stock cause we have lots of turkey stock. That’s it. Look at me following the recipe!
For all those incredible ingredients we got to take an adventure to the Mission to go to THE Mexican grocery store: Casa Lucas! It’s nice to mix it up and not always head on over the the sunset super. 🙂
Yeah, their pepper selection was alright
Having everything prepped before starting to cook is important:
Yep, that’s all going into the sauce (well, not Phil, he would make it taste weird)
Phil de-seeds the peppers
There was a present in one of our pepper bags
Roasting Tomatillos and Tomatoes
Everything ready to go into the pot
And then the cooking begins:
Saute Peppers
Saute garlic and onion
Add nuts and fruit
Add Spices
Add Tomato and Bread Products
Add Peppers and Stock
Add Chocolate
So in this gap is where the food processor came in. But I failed to get photos. Probably because this is the part where I feel like I struggled. It just didn’t blend it as much as I wanted. Apparently my food processor is not fantastic.
Mole for Days! There are two of these containers of concentrated Mole for the freezer!
Fry up some chicken
It totally tastes like Mole! I’m super impressed with the complexity of flavors. It was on the spicy side, but that’s not a bad thing. Really my only complaint is the consistency – it just wasn’t smooth enough. Apparently an immersion blender would help with this.
With a side of Spanish rice and refried beans
His and Hers!
Galen and Chloe
It’s a good thing I’m part Mexican, 0% to be more detailed. Okay so I’m not really Mexican, but I do like Mexican food, so I think that should count for like a percentage point.
Anyway this was a fun meal, cause we got a big camp crew over for it. Anja was in town, so we got to see Dwayne, Simon, Gabe, Walker, Miro, and Rae.
On to the food part or more on the shopping part, I just have to share my disappointment with New Leaf their dried peppers are priced way too high, like 6 dollars for a few once bag. Went down to the little mexi-grocery 2 bucks! Bad New Leaf!
Anyway, for the meal, we started by roasting some garlic and the dried Ancho and Chipotle peppers, and then soaking them. And then we fried up some Almonds.
Then we chopped up an onion and sauteed it with raisins, tossed in some bread crumbs (from my loaves once again), and tortilla strips, a couple of tomatoes, and some chocolate. Added some veggie broth, and blended, blended blended, adding, the almonds, and garlic and soaked chillies.
Now we add a little more stock and let it simmer, adding some oregano, pepper, sugar, and salt to set the flavor.
All the meanwhile I have my chicken soaking in the remaining juice that the peppers soaked in, which I added a little lime juice, agave, garlic, and chili pepper to. Before they go into the oven we poor a bottle of Corona (Miro’s idea) into the pan so that they get a mexican beer steam bath to keep them juicy. It works our pretty well, super juicy chicken, but not overly flavorful, which was actually fine because the main goal was to highlight the Mole. We also cook up a little beans (dwayne) and rice (anja) to go on the side of our meal.
I don’t know that I’ve actually had Mole anywhere really so I don’t have a good base to judge ours off of, but it tasted like chocolaty peppered goodness. It took a lot of prep time, which with our crew was great, but not any easy throw together. I really enjoyed it clearly, good company helps. Don’t think I would do anything differently, but I really need to taste some other moles to compare. Would certainly eat it again tho, and did for the next few days leftovers.
Albin and Jocie
We used this chicken mole recipe from the Boulder Localvore website. I think Albin chose this one because it not only looked good, but it also because it is a recipe that actually calls for the cut of chicken we stock our freezer with: thighs (they are just cheaper).
The first step was to roast the pepitas or pumpkins seeds for a few minutes until lightly browned.
Then, we combined most of the ingredients, including the roasted pepitas, into one bowl. There were quite a few ingredients. Ones you would expect like onion, garlic, fire roasted tomatoes, chipotle chilis, and chocolate, but there were also ingredients I didn’t expect like raisins and the pumpkin seeds. We also threw in some cinnamon and sugar because we couldn’t find Mexican chocolate.
Next, we blended the ingredients in the bowl with the immersion blender (I love this thing!)
After the mole sauce was prepared, we seasoned the chicken. We took each piece and patted both sides with a basic salt and pepper mixture. Sadly, I think I over salted. 😦
We placed all the chicken pieces on the bottom of the crock pot, poured the sauce over the top, and let it cook for about four hours. We made sure to stir the mole sauce every once and a while so that the sauce on top didn’t overcook.
After a few Sunday afternoon hours had passed (I think we went to the Small Dog Electronics store to try and get Albin’s computer fixed), we prepared the other parts of the meal. I wanted a vegetable so we made baked zucchini.
Lastly, we cooked a small pot of rice and hand-pressed tortillas.
Around 7pm, it was time to eat our chicken mole tacos topped with fresh tomato and avocado!
Here’s a closer look….it sure is hard to make this meal look appetizing.
The Weekly Cook-Off 