Holy mock Mole'

If you have never heard of, let alone tried Mole' sauce you are in for a treat and should try it the first time you it see available at any authentic Mexican restaurant you happen to come upon. Mole' varies from place to place, region to region and in some cases, day to day. Take a moment and look it up on wikipedia sometime, there is a history and a tale as rich as the sauce itself. I won't go in to the details, but the basic premise is that it is a sauce of great honor and tradition, to be served and eaten on special occasions and with reverence with loved ones.

That being said, let me say this is not the end all, be all, Mole' recipe. It is really something I threw together last minute when I was looking for something to with the excess of chicken I had leftover. This coincided with my discovery that the "bbq" sauce I had been thawing, (the label had long since slipped off, if ever there at all), was in fact some Ancho chilie sauce I made a few months back. Ancho chilies are dried pablano peppers and readily available in any gourmet/local store. They have a rich, slightly bitter flavor and great color. My Ancho sauce consists mainly of 10 dried ancho chilies, soaked in hot/hot water for over and hour and up to a day. De stem and rinse the seeds out, toss in a blender with 2 roasted/peeled/seeded red peppers, 6 blackened roma tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, 2 Tbl olive oil and 1/2 cup of chicken stock,( beef or veg will do)...and blend until smooth. Scald in a cast iron pan and simmer for 20 minutes. It stores well and goes great with fish/fowl or meat. Plus, as in this case, it works for a base for other stuff,,always a plus in my book.

I gently reheated 1 Qt Ancho sauce, and added 1Tbl cumin, 1 Tbl Chimayo red chilie powder, 1 Tbl chili powder, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp salt/pepper to taste, mixing it in while the sauce is not yet heated, it mixes smoother when not hot. Then reduce to around 3 cups, or until you get a nice sauce consistency. Now for the big finish,,the chocolate, I used 3 squares of Lindt chococlate with chili, which I seem to see at every store I run into. You can use any kind you like, I would stick with higher grade, don't toss in a Hershey bar, ideally some Mexican chocolate would be wonderful. Again,, this was a toss together meal, so work with me.

So we have our sauce, all we need now is a good civil engineer and we can start to construct our masterpiece. As I mentioned, I had a few cups of chicken meat, pulled from the previous nights roasted bird, corn tortillas, ( a fridge staple), jack and cheddar cheese, cilantro and diced spanish onion. I find that warming the tortillas in the microwave the easiest for this and placed 4 corn tortillas in a small plastic bag, micro for 30 seconds and let them steam in the bag for a few moments before assembling, caution, there will be steam, hot tortillas and potential danger, have no fear,, trundle on. Place tortillas on cutting board and put a little sauce on each, followed by shredded chicken, lightly seasoned with salt/pepper, chilie powder and lime, sprinkle some raw onions and cheese and roll,,you do know how to roll don't you? Put down some sauce in an oven safe dish, lay filled tortillas on top and cover with sauce and cheese. Bake, covered at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, uncover for ten more, or until cheese and sauce is bubbling and brown.

In this case I had some canned re fried beans, yes canned re fried beans, sometimes you do what you have to, for a side dish and since dinner really did not take up much time I made a Avocado "relish" to top the enchiladas with. The relish is just basic guacamole, but instead of smashing all the ingredients together, I dice the avocado and fold in the cilantro, onion, garlic, jalapeno, lime and salt, which by the way kills on chips.

All this really shows is that you can toss together anything from your fridge in a small amount of time, if you look at it with an open mind, and might just stumble on to your own masterpiece. So get started creating and share..you might like the resulting smiles.