Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Mole Poblano (A type of Mexican Curry?)

Mole Poblano is the most popular of ALL the Mexican mole sauces atleast that’s the case here in USA. Mole pronounced “Mol-ay” is a category of complex Mexican sauces made from many ingredients processed into a smooth creamy sauce with chicken or turkey meat.
Mole Poblano is slightly spicy, has hints of chocolate and a nutty flavor. It is delicious despite having chocolate it is savory. Give it a try.
I came up with this recipe from reading many recipes and taking the best out of all of them and combining it with my style of cooking.
AND YES I BELIEVE I HAVE MADE ONE OF THE BEST AND MOST FLAVORFUL Mole Poblanos. It is labor intensive but worth it.

Ingredients for stock:
-1 whole chicken skin removed, washed, cut into segments rubbed and cleaned with limes
-2 whole roma tomatoes
onion
-4 cloves garlic
-1 whole bell pepper
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 teaspoon ground black pepper
-1 teaspoon dried ground oregano
-2 dried bay leaves
-juice of 1 lime
-2 teaspoons chicken bouillon
-salt to taste
-about 16 cups of water (enough to kinda fill a kinda large but not super large pot)

Ingredients for Mole Sauce:
-4 chiles Mulatos (dried) stem removed, cut in half, remove seeds and veins
-4 chiles Anchos (dried) stem removed, cut in half, remove seeds and veins
-4 chiles Guajillos (dried) stem removed, cut in half, remove seeds and veins
-4 chiles Pasillas (dried) stem removed, cut in half, remove seeds and veins
-4 whole roma tomatoes chopped
-1 large onion minced
-4 peeled crushed cloves garlic
-1 large ripe plantain, peeled and sliced
-½ cup unsalted almonds
-½ cup unsalted peanuts
-2 tablespoons sesame seeds
-1 slice toasted bread
-2 toasted corn tortillas
-1 tablet Mexican chocolate (Chocolate Abuelita or Ibarra chocolate)
-4 whole cloves (or 1/8 tsp. ground)
-10 black peppercorns (or ½ tsp. Ground)
-1 cinnamon stick (or ½ tsp. ground)
-½ tsp. coriander seeds (or ¼ tsp. ground)
-½ tsp. anise seeds (or ¼ ground)
-About 4 teaspoons salt
-½- 1 cup Cooking Oil (I used Extra-Virgin Olive Oil. Lard would taste wonderful to.)

Directions for stock:
- Place all stock ingredients with water in a large pot, bring to a boil and cover on low for atleast 1-2 hours.
-When done take out chicken pieces and set aside, and drain the stock into another pot or a really large bowl to remove all the stuff it has. Discard the leftover stuff.
-The stock will b used to make the mole sauce to help blend everything.

Directions for Mole Sauce:
(1)Grind all the spices (cinnamon, coriander seeds, anise seeds, peppercorns) to a powder in a spice grinder, coffee grinder, malachite, or mortar depends on what you have or use
(2)Prepare all your ingredients and lay them out prepared for you. Cut dried chiles into bite size pieces.
(3)Now heat ½- 1 cup oil in a deep shallow pan on medium high and add almonds, sesame seeds, peanuts, onion, garlic, dried chilies, & plantain and sautee and fry evenly all until everything is browned or kinda toasted and cooked. Add roma tomatoes until cooked and release some juices. Stir everything to cook evenly. Add pieces of bread and tortilla.
(4)In a blender blend in batches until smooth thinning out with chicken stock as much as necessary to make into a smooth sauce along with little amount of spices.
(5)Pour each batch into a large pot add all the spices if you forgot and also add 1 whole tablet of Mexican chocolate.
(6)Bring to a boil season with salt to taste then lower heat to medium low and simmer uncovered for 2 hours stirring every 20-30 minutes scraping the bottom so it doesn’t stick until thickened and it gets a rich brown color. If to thick dilute with some of the stock. I ended up using all the stock.
(7)When ready to serve put chicken on persons plate and throw generous amount mole sauce on top serve with rice and tortillas.

NOTE:
You will have leftover sauce, plenty of it. This sauce freezes very well for later use, the longer it sits in the fridge the more flavorful. Also it is delicious for breakfast with some rice topped with fried eggs and some mole sauce over it YUM or with anything else smothered in this.
This makes about 8 servings or more?