How to make chicken with mole sauce, Fidel style.

 

 Friends, I am reposting this chicken mole recipe from several years ago — well, recipe is not quite the right word. “Procedure” is more like it because this is fairly in-exact. But here are the ingredients you need. This is inspired by a good friend, Fidel, who has lived out here in Santa Cruz for many years. If nothing else, reposting and slightly clarifying this procedure will help me make this dish for my family. Enjoy. And feel free to send in your own recommendations for tweaks and additions if you wish.
INGREDIENTS
seven or eight garlic gloves
two pounds Yukon gold potatoes, cubed
three pounds chicken (drumstick/breast combination works really well, though i often go with just drumsticks)
two or three packets of soft corn tortillas
one puck of Abuelita Mexican-style chocolate
10 or so whole cloves. (as in, the spice called cloves. Not be confused with garlic cloves!
salt to taste
16 ounces — at least — of dried pasilla peppers, available at most Mexican specialty food stores
enough vegetable oil to coat the pan for when you are cooking the pasillas in a cast iron skillet
 PROCEDURE:
Keep in mind, this is an experiential meal. This is not an exact science. Don’t ask me about tablespoons and exact measurements because they do not exist. A certain amount of trial and error is involved. your basic ingredients will be La Abuelita mexican chocolate, pasilla peppers, lots of garlic, cloves, about three pounds of chicken (drumstick and breast combination according to your preference) and about two pounds of potatoes. Here’s how it works: the first thing you do is down a shot of good tequila so you can work up the gumption to go to the store and buy 16 ounces, at least, of dried pasilla (sp?) peppers. Then boil up about 6 drumsticks and two pounds of chicken breast in just enough water to cover them until done but tender. Do not throw the resulting chicken soup away! (I adda few tablespoons of the soup to the mole sauce later on to loosen up the texture if it is too thick or clumpy).
In a separate pot, boil up about two pounds of yukon potatoes, cubed. (Leave the skins on!!)
Take the peppers and remove most of the seeds from them, in between taking big gulps of Corona and Anchor Steam to give you energy to take the seeds out. Then throw the peppers (without the seeds. They will burn the hell out of your mouth and you will be sorry. Trust me. Do not eat them!!) in a big cast-iron pan with an entire bulb of garlic. Cook it up in a few dollops of vegetable oil. It will smoke and burn a bit so make sure you’re running the fan as fast as it will go. Wait about five minutes until the pasillas start to change color. Then stuff them in the blender with about ten whole cloves and put the blender on ‘pulverize.
‘ Put a hockey puck of La Abuelita Mexican chocolate in there and keep on blending with about a half a cup of chicken soup left over from boiling your chicken legs. At this point, the blender will cease to function. Send someone sober back home to get another blender. Wait a half an hour for the guy to come back, then keep blending. Boil up about 10 drumsticks and two pounds of chicken breasts, and in a separate pot boil up a bunch of yukon potatoes, skins on. Dump the contents of the first and second blenders into the pot. Salt to taste. Serve with warm tortillas and potato chips that have been well-doused with Crystal hot sauce. Trust me, it’s damned good.

2 comments

  1. bhmd6.com

    Stuff corn tortillas with shredded chicken, beef or vegetables and pour mole sauce on top before baking.

    1. Dan White Post author

      Yes, good idea.

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