Host An Unforgettable Book Club Party

This mole, which is a spicy chocolate sauce, is a recipe from Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.  The original recipe calls for feeding walnuts to a turkey 15 days before it is to be killed and waiting 2 days after you kill the turkey before you make the dish.   An alternative (highly recommended) is to purchase the turkey at your local grocery store.   I rearranged the ingredients a bit to make it easier to follow and had to guess on some of the amounts.  Some of the ingredients were not mentioned in the recipe (ie peanuts) so I added these where it seemed most appropriate.  Overall, a very tasty dish!

Inspired by Like Water for Chocolate

Prep: 30 minutes     Cook time:  about 25 minutes    Serves:  6

Ingredients

• 1 turkey, cooked
• a handful of almonds
• a handful of sesame seeds
• a handful of peanuts
• seeds from the chiles (below)
• 2 tablespoons lard
• 1/4 chile mulato
• 3 chiles pasillas
• 3 chiles anchos
• 2 cups turkey stock
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon anise
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• a hard roll (1/3 concha loaf)
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/4 cup wine
• 2 squares of chocolate
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Instructions

1. Toast the almonds, sesame seeds, peanuts and seeds from the chiles in a griddle.  In a separate frying pan with a little lard, the chiles, with their membranes removed, are also toasted – lightly, so they don’t get bitter.  Ground the toasted chiles, nuts and seeds on a stone.
2. When the almond and sesame seeds have been thoroughly ground, mix them with the stock in which the turkey was cooked and add salt to taste.
3. Grind the cloves, cinnamon, anise and pepper in a mortar, adding the roll last, after frying it in lard with chopped onion and garlic.  Combine this mixture with the wine and blend well.
4. Combine all the ingredients for the mole in a large earthenware pan, add the cut up turkey, chocolate and sugar to taste.  As soon as the mixture thickens, remove it from the heat.  (Puree it with an immersion blender).