Chicken Mole

I recently tried mole (pronounced mo-lay) for the first time at a small Mexican restaurant/grocery in West Lafayette, La Guadalupana.  I ordered their enmoladas (basically, enchiladas covered in mole rather than red or green chili sauce).  They were really good!  Smoky, spicy, rich – but maybe a little too salty.  I decided I wanted to try out making a mole sauce of my own – so I browsed around the internet, and armed with several recipes (along with one sent from Amy over at Americana Kitchen), I set out to make my own.

In hindsight, there are many more spices and ingredients I could have used (and probably will use in the future – more on this at the end of the post), but I’m okay with starting small.  And now, on with it – here’s my quick version of mole:

YOU WILL NEED:

• Olive Oil (a few tbsps)
• 1 onion
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp chipotle flakes
• 10 oz diced tomatoes
• 1 Poblano pepper
• 2 Anaheim peppers
• 10 oz vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp peanut butter (creamy)
• 2 oz bittersweet chocolate (chopped)
• 6 chicken breasts

YOU WILL NEED TO:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F.
2. Dice the onion, and sauté with olive oil until translucent.  Add the garlic.
   
3. Finely chop the peppers, add to sauté pan.
   
4. Add spices and tomatoes – continue to mix and sauté to let the flavors mingle.
   
5. Add the vegetable stock, peanut butter, and chocolate.  Let this all mix and melt together, and simmer for around 15 minutes.
    
6. While that is going on, sear the chicken (in a different sauté pan) with olive oil on both sides until slightly browned.
   
7. Put the chicken into a casserole dish, and pour the (now, hopefully, thick) sauce over the top.
    
8. Braise for around 50 minutes in the oven.
   
9. Serve with rice!
   

Now, from my musings and browsings about the internet, I have become aware that what I have just presented you with would not be a recipe for what one would traditionally call a mole.  Traditional moles seem to be the “simmer all day to achieve proper flavor saturation” variety of food, and the idea of a “quick and easy” mole is sort of a bastardization.  However, I do live in America, the home of deep fried butter, and the bastardization of other culture’s classic dishes seems to be one of the things that we do best.  I am mostly kidding.

In the future, when (and if, since my wife is less than thrilled about the idea of chocolate Mexican food) I make this dish, I will consider more spices.  The ingredient lists of other moles I have found can number in the dozens for spices alone.  The rules seems to be “if it doesn’t seem to belong, go ahead and add it.”  People are using cloves, allspice, nutmeg – things you would expect to see in a bakery around Christmas time.  And I am definitely okay with that.  I am also seeing that most people strain and/or puree the sauce in-between the simmering and pouring-onto-the-chicken-or-using-for-other-things-as-you-would-expect stages.  I would be fine with this, and would have done it, except for the fact that I don’t have a food processor, and would have had to use a blender.  I didn’t really want to get out the blender, so I left it chunky.  I think it turned out fine, but I do think the flavors would be a lot better if there was less texture in the sauce.  It would also coat the rice better.  Maybe I need to buy a food processor… Or at least one of these.