Mole

Today I cooked a mexican tradition - Mole. I decided to use chicken, following a recipe from 'Jamie's America' - a really fantastic book by Jamie Oliver, full of incredible and delicious dishes from his journeys from across the pond. Mole is a sauce that comes in many different varieties (black, red, green and so on), and is a great representative dish of Mexico. It's often used for big celebrations such as weddings and can often be eaten as early as 9am, despite its rich and spicy flavour.
This recipe gets it's richness from the large amount of dark chocolate that the recipe involves, along with cocoa powder. Mole is a dish that takes many years to perfect, and so the best way to create it is to follow the recipe of someone else who has already perfected it and then make changes for yourself.
The sauce is great for dipping in juicy meats (everyone loves a bit of juicy meat) or crusty bread. I served my Chicken Mole with a big chunk of crusty bread (for the boys) and a big side garden salad. The salad was made up of gem lettuce, tomato and sweet baby peppers. I doused it in a vinaigrette of my own creation.

This consisted of:
3 tsp garlic olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar
Fresh thyme
Salt and Pepper
A splash of lime juice
A drizzle of honey

Very quick and easy.

The Mole dish takes a fair while to cook depending on how many you're serving as you have to boil your chicken thoroughly, and the sauce requires blending (yes, I did get sauce all over the kitchen counter... and myself). The waiting pays off however, and I was left feeling a bit tingly afterwards - not sure whether that was the heat from the chillies or something altogether more erotic.