paint your kitchen red

This weekend when my mom came to visit, I enlisted her help in making a simplified mole-type sauce for enchiladas that I plan on making soon for my birthday dinner party. The ensuing afternoon included three trips to the grocery store, two mexican beers, and several housemates roped in to test the sauce for spiciness. Our first batch was too hot to serve to guests. Too hot to serve to anyone, for that matter. That's what we get for buying a pepper without knowing what it is and using the whole thing without tasting it first. We made another batch without a fresh pepper, and the final product consisted of half of one batch mixed with half of the other. The recipe below, for the sake of time and sanity, doesn't require that you make two batches and mix them.

The consistency of the sauce depends on the quality of your blender.The messiness of your kitchen also depends on the quality of your blender. My mom and I were working with a very temperamental and poorly-designed piece of machinery, so we painted ourselves and my stove-top with spicy red sauce.

There are mushrooms growing out of my cutting board! Sorry, no photo of the mole sauce, but these mushrooms did go into the enchiladas that the sauce was made for.

Mole poblano

3 Tblsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
small piece ginger, about 1 square inch, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, chopped or pressed*1/2 medium sized poblano pepper, seeded and diced
7 oz can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup almonds, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup pistachios, coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar
approximately 3/4 cup water
1 12-15 oz can diced tomatoes
Saute garlic, ginger, onion, and diced poblano in a large saucepan in the olive oil. When soft, add the can of chipotle peppers, almonds, raisins, pistachios, cocoa powder, vinegar, cocoa, and water. Simmer for half an hour. Let cool, then transfer to a blender and blend with the diced tomatoes (juice from the can of tomatoes included).

*The poblano pepper gives the sauce such a nice flavor, but it is moderately hot. Omit or reduce the amount if your guests are wimpy. Another option is to chop and include the whole pepper and use the resulting sauce less generously, as you would a hot-sauce rather than over enchiladas.