Mole, February 18,2012

I promised a blow by blow description of my "mole" class and here it comes. The picture above is my plate of the rather unusual concoction. Looks like chocolate and bananas, right?

Step one is to walk to the food market about a mile away. You buy 3 lb of tomatoes, 2 large dried black chilies, 2 hot red chilies (also dried) about 1 1/2 cups of squash seeds, about 1/2 cup of what look like poppy seeds, 1 stick of cinnamon, 3 lb chocolate, about 5 lb of plantains, and a little sugar.

You walk home and begin by opening and removing the seeds from the peppers and cutting up the plantains. (Plantains are like a large very sweet banana.) Next you put the tomatoes on a griddle to brown all sides. Toward the end you toss the peppers and the cinnamon on the griddle to brown too.

In another pan, with a little oil, you brown the plantains. To "molinar" actually means to brown or to sear something, so the ingredients for mole are always browned before going into the sauce.

It is also necessary to brown the seeds and cinnamon in another pan.

Then you put about 2 quarts of cold water in a bowl and toss in the browned tomatoes, peppers, seeds and cinnamon. The water turns black because everything has been seared.

The cold water "softens" everything. You put this mixture in the blender and blend until everything is liquefied. This is called the "liqueur."

You put this liqueur in a big kettle and add the chocolate, stirring until it is melted. Then you bring the whole thing to a boil for 5 or 10 minutes. You add just a little sugar or to taste.

At the very last, you add in the fried plantains. Serve hot!

This recipe makes a couple quarts and would probably serve a two dozen people. I can see serving it over cake or a sweet biscuits. It must be an acquired taste though. I thought it was good... but

my American self would really prefer bananas and chocolate!

Have a great week! Love from blogland! Noanie-Joanne-Mom