Moley moley moley moley moley

....as quoted by Austin Powers in Goldmember. We couldn't help ourselves but quote this repeatedly this afternoon while prepping tea.

So as you know I bake. I love to bake. But I also love to cook and recently coming up with new meals has just gone by the wayside with my seemingly endless dieting which hasn't really got me very far.

I digress. I actually fancy myself as a good cook. There I said it. Got to be proud of something in myself.

I digress further. 

I've wanted to make a mole for years but just never randomly got round to it. But it was finally time to bring the Mexican national dish to our kitchen (despite hubby not knowing really what it was or that it was a national dish of a country he's been to twice).

There are hundreds of variations on how to make a mole and the old traditional ways of preparing a mole would be very time consuming and laborious (thanks wiki!). But thanks to my blender it took very little preparation time in my modern day kitchen. With so many recipes to choose from I plumped for Good Food's version (with some alterations)

Good Food / Chele's Chicken Mole

2 chillies

Sunflower oil 

2 chicken breasts 

1 1/2 onions 

1 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 garlic cloves

40g raisins

2 tbsp peanut butter

2 tbsp chipotle / jerk paste

400g tinned tomatoes

25g chocolate min 70% cocoa solids

Boil the kettle, pour enough water over the chillis to cover them and leave them for 20 minutes.

Heat some oil in a heavy based pan / casserole dish and brown the chicken breasts on both sides for a few minutes then remove. Fry the onions gently for 5 minutes until soft then add the cumin and cinnamon and cook for another minute.

Destalk and deseed the chillis and place in a blender with the garlic cloves, chipotle paste, raisins, 4 tbsp of the water you soaked the chillies in and tomatoes. Blend until smooth. Add the peanut butter to the pan of onions then pour over the chilli sauce you've just blended. Swirl out the tin of tomatoes, so you get all the leftovers, with cold water and add to the pan. Bring to the boil, add the chicken back in and turn to a low heat to simmer gently for an hour with the lid on. It should be a medium brown colour and fairly thick.

After an hour add the chocolate and break up the chicken breasts in the pan. Cook for a further 20 minutes with the lid off.  It will now be a dark brown colour and thick.

We served ours with taco shells and microwave lemon and coriander rice.

It was quite spicy leaving a very warm mouth so if you don't like things too spicy I would leave a chilli out and reduce the amount of chipotle paste.

* I couldn't find any chipotle paste so used jerk paste instead 

Buen provecho!

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