(TPCs easy weekday Chicken en Molé)
I love to make molé. Technically, since 'molé' is derived from 'mulli', the Nahautl word for 'sauce', this is a real molé, but a traditional molé has lots of ingredients that combine to create a wonderfully textured sauce with layer upon layer of flavor.
This ain't it by a long shot, but since the pantry and my time were both equally lacking, I made do with what I had. I took some chicken thighs I had grilled off the day before and simmered them in some chicken stock and some of the chili pureé I had left from the Traditional New Mexico Pork Chile I made recently, which gave me a big head start.
I added some more dried oregano, a bit of cumin, a pinch of cinammon, a few bittersweet chocolate chips, a squeeze of honey and simmered it until it thickened up to the right consistency. A classic molé gets its texture from pureéd nuts and tortilla but none of that here today. I took the kernels of a few ears of fresh corn and added that too for a bit more sweetness and texture. Grilled off a few flour tortillas and you have a very decent molé in less than an hour.
This looks like a pretty good molé if you've got the time to check it out. I wouldn't use as much oil as they call for, I'd replace some of the cloves with allspice, substitute almonds instead of peanuts, etc. but the recipe gives you a pretty good representation of the techniques involved.
What did you have for dinner last night?
I had a meal from a recipe I gleaned from a cookbook circa 1909.
Hot pan, butter, then flour to roux. Deepened to darkish peanut butter color. Added two cups of beef broth and simmered until thick. Added a teaspoon of minced onion, half a bay leaf and a lump or two of butter.
Simmered for an hour.
Strain sauce and add finely diced mushrooms, about a handful. Let sit to the side while steak is getting ready.
Cast iron pan out, get smoking. Toss in grapeseed oil, then sirloin steak. Fry to 135 degrees, pull and rest.
Install to platter with sauce underneath, not on top. Meat is pretty, don't screw with it.
Served with fresh string beans with butter & a squeeze of half a lemon.
MmMMmmm.
I dig it, Dr. B. Basic and hearty, what a concept.
What did you use for beef broth? Most of the stuff on the shelf gets really salty as it reduces.
... ... ... I think it was Pacific brand natural beef broff. Yeah. Man, it was good. Not too salty, the butter may have made it as palatable as it was.
Biggles
Hey! I like your approach to mole. Basically, just make up stuff.
Last night I had a Hickory Farms beef stick from Longs Drugs, sliced, with some junk-chunk cheddar, on saltines, smooshed with mustard. An' beer. Sometimes you just gotta not cook.
I love to make a 15 ingredient mole when I have time, but the real world was rearin' its ugly head last night.
Sausage and beer. Sometimes ya just gotta get back to basics.
You could call it a ploughman's lunch...
Tonight we had Mexican. Barbacoa tacos and chicken tacos. The barbacoa I made up on the spot as I was getting number one son his breakfast: stewed down some pork roast in homemade salsa (Fine Cooking recipe) with pinches and shakes of chili powder, cinnamon, clove, chipotle, pepper, and sugar in the raw. The chicken was marinated and grilled on Monday so I just sliced it up and served it with garlic butter. Those two fillings with white cheddar (very sharp, I like a ton of flavor), lettuce, fresh salsa, and wrapped in made-them-as-we-ate fresh tortillas. I got the tortilla recipe from the King Arthur Baker's Companion. They harden up pretty quickly so I just cook as I eat. There must be a better way.
Very interesting.... and along the lines of our "chili" that has been in our family forever.
Well this has a lot more to it of course -
thnx. :)
Wow, Ana. Way to go for it. Are they flour tortillas? I'd be curious to see what kind of fat you use in them.
And Kei, simple is nothing to sneeze at. The pork chile I blogged about here last month had only pork, red chile, garlic and oregano with a touch of honey. Nothing fancy, just good.
Thin Cornmeal Tortilla (King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion)
5 1/2 oz unbleached all purpose flour
3 1/4 oz yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup corn oil or vegetable oil (I used Canola)
1/2 cup + 1 T water
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix together flour, cornmeal, and oil. Gradually mix in water and salt. Knead briefly until the dough is smooth. Divide into 10 portions. Shape into balls, flatten slightly, and let them rest (covered) for at least 30 minutes. [I flaten them into discs and cover them with a wet paper towel]. Roll to 8" diameter tortillas (I roll them even thinner so they just pretend to be there holding the taco together.) Preheat cast iron pan over medium heat and fry them up (no oil) for about 45 seconds per side. It says to stack them up to keep them soft and pliable, but I'm not having a lot of success with that. I think that I'm losing moisture by making them so thin. Whatcha think?
I haven't made a lot of tortillas from scratch but holding flour tortillas and crepes is tough by nature. If you're happy with the way they look and taste when they're done and your only problem is preserving the quality, here's a couple of things to try, but be careful you don't overdo it.
First, keep them warm and tightly wrapped. By heating the tortilla, you've pretty much removed the water in the recipe, so once it cools it's going to get crispy. Once you've added your filling, it reconstitutes itself again but of course by then you've broken it to bits trying to roll it.
If you have a steamer, you might try holding them in there with the heat low or even off really, once the water's hot. Crack the lid a bit so they don't get soggy, you're only trying to keep the humidity up so they can aborb water vapor instead of air.
The other option is to lightly brush them with corn oil on one side. Or dip a paper towel in oil and do it that way so it's harder to overdo it. I recommend one side because the other side will get oiled when you stack them, just like buttering crepes. The tortilla will absorb enough oil to keep it pliable until you can fill it.
Let me know what you come up with!