Saturday Dinner IV: Mole (Mole Rojo con Pollo)

I wanted to make something big, new, and exciting for this dinner, so I went to the mole section of the cookbook. This one looked the best to me, and Bayless suggests making a traditional dinner with the three dishes from the last three posts. (Well, he actually suggests making caramel crepes with the cajeta, but I figured I had ignored the guests enough at that point, so we just served the cajeta with ice cream.)

I have been putting off both this and the last post both because I have been very busy and because I have been dreading it a bit. The mole took all day, and I mean all day. Charlie woke us up, we got him ready, and I started cooking. I took a short break for lunch (from El Tiempo Market and St. Arnold) and kept cooking until about 5:00. I took a shower, got ready for dinner, and redid the rice before the guests arrived. The good news is that I made a double batch of mole, so we still have a bunch of mole in our freezer. I was a bit worried that this post would take a really long time, too. We'll see...

On to the mise! Well, in this case, there are several mise pictures because of all of the ingredients. I based the mise on the categories that Bayless has in the ingredient list. First up are the chiles:

I used anchos, pasillas, and guajillos. (The recipe calls for mulatos. I couldn't find anything that went by that name, and I understand that mulatos are similar to anchos and pasillas, which this recipe already has. I wanted to try something different, so I got guajillos, which are, after all, dark skinned (mulatos).)

Next are the nuts, seeds, flavorings, and thickeners:

Clockwise from the upper left is: canned tomatoes, tomatillos, peanuts, raisins, sesame seeds, onions and garlic, stale bread (ciabatta), a stale corn tortilla, and a chopped plaintain. Here's a closer look at the bread, tortilla, and plantain:

And here are the remaining items from this category:

Next up are the herbs and spices:

In the ramekin is chocolate, and a cinnamon stick is in the center of the plate. Clockwise from the top of the plate are torn bay leaves, dried oregano, dried thyme, cloves, and peppercorns. There are a few more ingredients that we'll get to later, in case you didn't think that was enough.

Anyway, on with the prep. First, I ground up the spices using a mortar and pestle and put them in a bowl with the chocolate, tomatoes, tomatillos, oregano, and thyme. I toasted the sesame seeds and added them to the mix. Then I stemmed, seeded, and deveined the chiles and piled them up on the board for frying:

The next step, obviously, was to fry them in a bunch of lard. I put them in individually or in small groups and fried them just for a few seconds on each side, until they browned and the skin blistered:

Here's what they looked like:

Then I reconstituted them in water, like I showed before. The frying was not done yet, though! I also fried everything from the nuts, seeds, flavorings, and thickeners except for the sesame seeds, tomatoes, and tomatillos. Then I mixed everything but the chiles together, and it was ready for the blender:

I blended all of those ingredients together and pressed them through a strainer:

This is the result:

Next, I blended the chiles and ran them through a separate strainer:

That's pretty much it for the mole prep. Next, I turned to the chicken:

Nice looking bird, isn't it? Thanks, Central Market. I must confess, this was the first time I ever butchered a chicken. We don't eat much chicken, and when we do, it is usually chicken paillard or some other recipe that calls for chicken breasts, and boneless chicken breasts at that. I was excited about the opportunity to deal with a whole chicken, and I really liked butchering it. I pulled out my Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques and went to town. There will be more whole chickens in my future (and, hopefully, some homemade chicken broth). Here's the chicken after I quartered it:

Having taken care of that, I got back to the mole. I fried the chile puree until it darkened and thickened (sorry, no picture -- stirring constantly) and did the same with the remaining puree (ditto). This is what it looked like when the two purees were put together:

Next, I added about five cups of chicken broth and brought the whole thing to a simmer:

When we had finished the soup, I browned the chicken in a pan for about three minutes per side:

Then I added it to the simmering mole. The cookbook says to cook the dark meat for ten minutes, then add the breasts for fourteen minutes more. Perhaps it was the precision of the fourteen minutes, but I actually believed the food would be ready by then. It was not; not even close. It took at least another ten minutes; I think it was twenty. Anyway, it was cooked when we served it, along with the rice:

It was awesome, and totally worth all of the effort. The flavors were so complex, it is really difficult to describe. You can really taste both the ingredients and the effort. Our French friends who travel to Mexico (real Mexico, not the beaches) regularly appeared to like it, and they were very complimentary. All I can say is that I was really happy with it, and I will totally make it again, even though it is a lot of work. I am also really looking forward to getting another chicken and making this dish again with the mole we froze -- the same flavor, but without nearly as much effort! Won't that be nice...

This post, while it did take a long time, was worth it, too. I can almost taste the mole again...

Sources:
Chiles from Don Enrique
Tomatoes from Muir Glen
Chocolate from La Popular
Sesame seeds from Balducci's
Ciabatta from The Bread Baker's Apprentice (made with flour from King Arthur Flour and yeast from Fleischmann's)
Pretty much everything else from Central Market or our pantry

Saturday Dinner III: Mexican Tomato-Colored Rice (With Fresh Vegetables) (Arroz a la Mexicana (con Verduras))

So, I'm finally back. It's almost enough to make one wonder, Fan (if you exist), why a person with a fairly grueling occupation and an infant child would start a blog. Well, Fan (if you exist), it's really a somewhat Quixotean task, admittedly. Moreover, I haven't had the type of travel that allows me to spend time on the blog lately (not that there has been no travel). Anyway, here's the latest post. For those who have forgotten over the last month, there are four posts about a Saturday dinner I made. We've seen the soup and the dessert (cajeta, for which, if you must know, a second batch is completely gone, and I got to eat some of it!). Now for the main course (well, its side...):

This dish got off to a very bad start. I started it early, thinking it would be nice to finish it and be able to reheat it according to the book's directions while spending time with my guests. Needless to say, it didn't quite work out that way. The first time I made it, the rice was, well, just wrong. I mean, very wrong. It was kind of like risotto on the outside, but completely undercooked on the inside. The more I cooked it, the worse it got. I eventually threw it out and started over. So much for time with the guests...

Anyway, it all starts with some onions and rice. The recipe calls for them to be toasted in oil, but I, of course, toasted them in pork fat. That's the way I roll...

I love the way rice tastes when toasted, and that's what I do now with risotto (which we eat just about weekly) before I cook it. It adds a great dimension to the flavor, and I don't know how I lived without it before, quite frankly. The only problem is the tendency for it to burn before the onions are ready, but I think I have that down now. Or maybe that has something to do with the rock-hard risotto garbage. You be the judge.

Once the rice and onions were lightly browned, I added some minced garlic. Meanwhile, I pureed some canned tomatoes (no, it was not -- and frankly is not -- tomato season yet), heated them up, and added them to the rice and onions. I also heated up some chicken broth in a separate pot. You'll notice that the pot appears to have been used. That's what happens when you have to throw out your first batch and start another one, at least when you're me. You'll also notice that there has been a blue ray of deliciosity in the background of the last two pictures. What delights does the Le Crueset hold? You'll have to wait (ideally, not another month) to find out...

Also part of the mise was some carrots and peas, which I had previously cooked:

Who's up for some pot pie?!? Sorry, but that's what I think when I see this. Not to mention the Swanson TV dinners from my youth. But seriously, these taste good. Pay no attention to the infant behind the curtain (who eats these sorts of things all of the time...)!

Anyway, that's pretty much it for the mise, and the final plating picture will have to wait for the Le Creuset to reveal its delights. For those of you who haven't lost interest in the last month -- I'm talking to you, Fan (if you exist) -- another potentially long wait should be nothing!

Sources:

Pretty much just our pantry, which is almost exclusively from Central Market