R2R: Chicken Mole Poblano

When I think of February, Valentines day, romance and chocolate springs to mind, So when looking for a recipe for this month I wanted something that shouted Valentines day at me. Mole, that fabulous savory chocolate pepper sauce, does that for me. Spicey and full of passion with the romance of chocolate and just as individual as those we love.

The origin of mole poblano, the thick, rich, chocolate-tinged sauce made so famous in the colonial mountain city of Puebla, Mexico, is still disputed, and generally involves these two versions of the legend:

The first says that 16th Century nuns from the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla de los Angeles, upon learning that the Archbishop was coming for a visit, went into a panic because they had nothing to serve him. The nuns started praying desperately and an angel came to inspire them. They began chopping and grinding and roasting, mixing different types of chiles together with spices, day-old bread, nuts, a little chocolate and approximately 20 other ingredients..

This concoction boiled for hours and was reduced to the thick, sweet, rich and fragrant mole sauce we know today. To serve in the mole, they killed the only meat they had, an old turkey, and the strange sauce was poured over it. The archbishop was more than happy with his banquet and the nuns saved face. Little did they know they were creating the Mexican National dish for holidays and feasts, and that today, millions of people worldwide have at least heard of mole poblano.

The other legend states that mole came from pre-hispanic times and that Aztec king, Moctezuma, thinking the conquistadors were gods, served mole to Cortez at a banquet to receive them. This story probably gained credibility because the word mole comes from the Nahuatl word “milli” which means sauce or “concoction”. Another connection could be that chocolate was widely used in pre-columbian mexico, so people jumped to that conclusion.

Here is the recipe I chose (mainly for its simplicity and use of fairly common ingredients) please read the notes at the end and enjoy. :)

Chicken Mole Poblano
Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence

Ingredients
Mole sauce:

2 dried ancho chilies, stemmed and seeded
2 dried anaheim chilies, stemmed and seeded
2 dried chipotle chilies, stemmed and seeded
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup whole almonds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick, preferably Mexican, broken in pieces
1 tablespoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican
4 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves only
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 small onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 serrano peppers, stemmed and seeded
6 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, preferably Mexican, chopped

Chicken:

1 capon or large chicken, cut into 10 pieces
1 lemon, juiced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups chicken stock

Cilantro leaves, for garnish
Cooked white rice, for serving

Directions
For the mole:
Tear the ancho, anaheim, and chipotle chiles into large pieces and toast them in a dry skillet over medium heat until they change color a bit, about 2 minutes.

Put them into a bowl with the raisins and cover them with hot water. Soak until softened, about 30 minutes.

In the same skillet over medium heat, add the almonds, sesame seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon stick, oregano, and thyme. Toast for 2 minutes, grind in a spice grinder, and add the powder to a blender.

In the same skillet over medium-high heat add the olive oil, onions, garlic, and serrano. Cook until lightly browned, then add the tomatoes. Cook until vegetables are softened, about 10 to 15 minutes, then add to the blender.

Add the chocolate and the soaked chiles and raisins to the blender along with some of the chile soaking liquid.

Puree, adding more soaking liquid as needed, to make a smooth sauce. (This makes about 4 cups sauce, the recipe uses 2 cups, the extra can be frozen).

for the Chicken:
Pour the lemon juice over the chicken and season it well with salt and pepper.

Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed skillet and brown the chicken on all sides; remove the browned chicken to a plate leaving the oil in the pan.

Pour 2 cups of the mole sauce into the hot skillet and simmer for about 5 minutes.
Add the chicken stock and return the chicken pieces to the pan.

Simmer, covered, until the chicken is cooked through, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve over cooked white rice. Garnish everything with cilantro leaves.

Notes:

I realize that all palates and shopping centers are not created equal, so feel free to mix and match your peppers to suite. You can look up how hot different peppers are here (Scoville scale). I skipped the serrrano on mine and while the sauce was good it was definitely missing something, so keep in mind it is important for your sauce to have a bit of bite.

The sauce is perfectly edible before the final step of adding the chicken broth (or veggie) so give it a taste and change it up as needed for your taste buds.

This sauce is suppose to be smooth, and barring commercial equipment, we are just not going to achieve that perfectly smooth texture, so don't be afraid to blend the heck out of everything.

For those not familiar with Mexican chocolate, like Ibarra, it is grainy with cocoa nibs, sugar and cinnamon. While delicious it is not the same as your regular baking chocolate.

Don't forget when working with peppers use care, wash your hands well and frequently and wear gloves, pepper juice in your eye or up your nose is not fun.

Temper's Take:
This was really really good (even if it did need those serranos I left out). It was also alot easier than I had been led to believe by some of the recipes out there. Even Indra liked it.

It smelled so good cooking, though I will admit most things smell good when you toast them. I found my self snitching bits as I put everything together.

I used chicken quarters with the skin on, the skin turned kind of soft and icky and it was hard getting the meat off the bone with a fork (the mole made this not a finger food) so next time I would use skinless breasts (or use pork, mmmm pork) to avoid these issues.

I would have loved to pair this with an Avocado salad and jazzed the rice up with some cilantro and lime but I wanted Indra to at least try it so I am saving that for next time. The tortillas though were perfect with it. I was tempted to do a chocolate dessert with the left over Ibarra but couldn't think of anything that Indra wouldn't prefer with regular chocolate, And since it was for Valentines, she gets what she wants.

R2R, Ricotta

This months Recipe to Rival challenge was Ricotta. I was very excited about it. The figuring out what to make with it was a bit of a stumper as it is not an ingredient I usually use. I have made Maybelle's Mom's Great (and I do mean great) Gnocchi and Lasagna and even Cheese cake, but that really is the extent of my experience. So this was a real learning experience for me.

Fresh Ricotta

you'll need:
5 cups 2% milk
1 tbsp vinegar

Place vinegar and milk in a pot, heat on med-low heat until it reaches 185 degrees.

It will begin to separate into curds and whey. Be sure to stir occasionally to make sure no curds stick to the bottom and burn. You will see that as the temperature approaches 185, the whey becomes clearer as the curds coagulate more.

Pour the curds into a cheesecloth lined colander. Tie the ends of the chesecloth together and hang for 10-15 minutes. Remove from cheesecloth and place in an airtight container.

I paired my ricotta with cornmeal crepes and pork loin in a blackberry wine reduction. Overall a success, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Cornmeal Crepes
5 crepes

1/2 batch cornmeal pancakes
2 well beaten eggs
milk

add the eggs to the cornmeal pancake mix.
then add milk til you reach the desired consistency
pour a portion into a hot skillet and swirl to coat.
cook on med low heat until they are done (do not turn)
gently peel from the pan and set aside to cool (they are delicate so be careful)

Ricotta Stuffing

1 cup ricotta
1 well beaten egg
1 tbsp Honey
Salt and pepper

mix well and wrap in crepes.

Pork with Wine Reduction

Salt and Pepper
Garlic Salt
1 tbsp Butter
2 Garlic cloves sliced
fresh Rosemary
fresh Thyme
Blackberry Wine
1 tbsp Plum preserves

Use salt, pepper and garlic salt on the pork loins and sear both sides
put ricotta stuffed cornmeal crepes in 350 oven while making the sauce.
melt butter and add herbs and garlic, saute gently for 3 minutes
add wine (twice as much wine as you want finished sauce) and reduce by half
add plum preserves and gently stir until it is melted.
remove chunky bits from sauce and serve.

Temper's Take:
The ricotta turned out drier then I expected and I had some problems with scorching and temperature control (next time I am going to try it in the crock pot) But it was good and it was cheese. :) I didn't use buttermilk because I made the mistake of looking at the ingredient list, tapioca starch was one of the more recognizable things on it. I think I would like to try substituting a dry white wine for the butter milk once, it has the potential to be quite good.

The crepes turned out wonderfully and were so much easier then I thought they would be. The stuffing was a good match but my proportions were off (less ricotta more crepe next time) and I really think some parmesan in the crepes and some herbs in the stuffing would be even better.

The pork was lovely and the wine reduction paired perfectly with it. Unfortunately the wine reduction didn't go as well with the crepes. It was too sweet, next time I think I want to try a sauce with a bit of bite to it.

R2R, Holopchi

This months challenge was Beet Leaf Holopchi. Our hosts for January were KatBaro of A good Appetite and Giz & Psychgrad of Equal Opportunity Kitchen. I changed up the recipe a little, the original can be found here. I used turnip leaves instead of Beet leaves and stuck some pork chops in the bottom of the pan with the extra turnip leaves. The pork chops turned out so tender and tasty I wish I had snuck a few more in and with the extra turnip leaves it was almost a one pot meal.

I quartered the bread dough and still had enough left over to make a loaf of bread. In the end though I wish I had made more because they were good! Here are the measurements I used.

1 1/8 t instant yeast
2 T warm water
1/4 t sugar
1/2 c scalded milk
1 c warm water
1 T melted butter
2 c flour
1 beaten egg
1/2 T salt
1 t sugar
1 1/2 c flour plus more as needed

The sauce I halved, half of that went on the Holopchi as it was cooking (added after it started to brown) and the rest I added when it was done.

Temper's Take:
I learned alot from this recipe, For example, I like turnip greens, who would have guessed! Also dill, not a favorite herb of mine, was actually very good in this. And the whole pork chop thing turned out so well I am thinking of trying some other variations.

R2R, Thank George's Bank

I was really excited when we decided to do this recipe. Thank George's Bank, it is Cod cakes with Poached eggs and Hollendaise. I love hollendaise but have never made it so I was really looking forward to making it. I was less excited by the poached egg (I like crispy greasy eggs darn it) and the fish, (despite stereotypes to the contrary not all lesbians like fish). But I figured the hollendaise would make it all good.

I have never steamed fish before so I was surprised how easy it was and it smelled pretty darn good (I will admit I also tasted it an except for being over seasoned it tastes pretty good too). One step Down, so far so good. I had mashed potatoes left over from supper and I always have eggs so once the fish was cooled the patties were ready to go. I covered them and stuck them in the fridge overnight.

The next morning bright and early I started the cod cakes cooking (like the alliteration?) I had already read about the problems other people had and armed with my potato patty experience I started Frying them up. I expected the first batch to turn out a little scrambled. But so was the second... and the third, which left me with 12 scrambled patties that taste Great, I mean really really good, but look well horrible. Not to worry cover it with Hollendaise and will all be good.

I am sorry to report that the hollendaise was a disaster. I tried again, still a disaster. It was not the recipes fault. I blame the equipment. The recipe says to use your food processor, and the blades were just not low enough to really mix the two egg yolks and after adding the butter nothing happened. I waited and waited and still no emulsification. I might have tried a third time and used the cooked version but It had been a long weekend and between this and the DB challenge (also failed) I had already gone thru 2 dozen eggs so I decided to call it quits.

I skipped poaching the egg because with out the sauce it just wasn't worth the effort. I will try again to make hollendaise, though I will not use the food processor. And I will probably even try poaching an egg just so I can say I have. But the Cod cakes really stole the show for me and as someone who is ambivalent about fish that is saying alot, I will definitely be trying those again. And maybe next time I will have some photos.

Caramel Honey Sauce

Ok this was made spur of the moment and exact measurements were not foremost in my mind. So live on the edge and see what you can make with it. :)

2 Tbsp Butter, slightly browned in pot at very low heat.
add 1/4 cup sugar and 1 Tbsp Honey

stir until well mixed and thick, add a pinch of salt, a couple more Tbsp Honey and water to thin everything down, we are making a sauce here not candy.

Add a couple Tbsp of milk until you have the desired consistency.

This was truly lovely. I licked my plate and then Indra's too (you snooze, you lose). The honey really added a nice dimension to the flavor and browning the butter slightly deepened the caramel flavor wonderfully.

My first try ended up a burnt mess; I had forgotten the low heat part of working with butter and sugar and it wasn't pretty.