Nov

¡Holy Mole! Chicken Mole with Tomatillos and Almond Flakes

Sean Sellers in White Wines, Chardonnay, Blow the Bank, Meat & Poultry 2005, Glen Carlou, Oddbins, Recipe

InterWined Food
Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results, along with the recipe.

Or so that’s the plan.

So, what happened last week?

After all, didn’t ‘Blow the Bank’ just return from a two-week hiatus?

The answer is a special two-for-one: For one week only, ‘Blow the Bank’ is taking over InterWined.com to give you two turkey-free dinners in an effort to guide you through the week that marks the first of America’s turkey-filled, turkey-fueled holidays and the starting bell for the mad dash toward Chrismukah and New Year’s.

The first, published today, is InterWined’s own recipe for Chicken Mole with Tomatillos and Almond Flakes, a dish designed to take you away from pressures of cooking a 16-pound bird for an ever-growing list of 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and once-removed cousins and kin.

The second, published Friday, aims to help you forget the inevitable drink-induced fallings-out and crazed, free-for-all, shop-fest fatigue that follows America’s great day of thanks.

In cooking terms, mole ranks as one of the handful of truly great and inspired Mexican contributions to world cuisine, with its unorthodox blend of chocolate, peppers, and spices. So, while some might find the thought of serving chicken, duck, or — yes; even turkey — with chocolate sickly, don’t believe the hype. Its subtle contrast of flavours proves sugar & spice and everything nice goes into more than just little girls.

As mentioned elsewhere, chardonnay is often the de-facto, no-imagination, partner to chicken that’s as ubiquitous, boring, and tiring to see as skinny jeans on every girl and boy that fancy themselves the next waif model or lead singer in a band whose name begins with ‘The’…

But every once in a while, one must swallow his pride and admit that no matter how many people look like David Banner moments before he warns you that ‘you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry’, some people really do look incredibly good in skinny jeans. The problem is that every time you see someone suited to skinny jeans, you realise just how awful everyone else that wears them really looks.

And, believe it or not, the same is true of chicken and chardonnay. Sometimes, the two are made for each other. Sometimes, the flavours of the chardonnay compliment the chicken dish in such a beautiful and unexpected way that you suddenly realise how so many people got the impression that the two went together so well in the first place. If it only it were always thus.

Fortunately, such is the case with the 2005 Glen Carlou Chardonnay Reserve, £13.99 from Oddbins, its wild mix of fruit and cinnamon proving perfectly suited to the Mexican mole. A big wine, the Glen Carlou nevertheless sits alongside the abundance of flavours in the mole without ever attempting to overtake it and comes off all the better for it. This is a chardonnay to make you forget that you don’t like chardonnay: 8.9.

InterWined’s Own Recipe In Full

Chicken Mole with Tomatillos and Almond Flakes

Ingredients:
4 ½ cups chicken stock
Olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Chopped pasilla chilli
Chopped ancho chilli
3 tablespoons masa harina
60 grams dark chocolate, preferably Mexican semisweet chocolate
4 chicken breasts
Almond flakes
Sesame seeds
Raisins
3 chopped, peeled tomatillos
2 chopped, peeled tomatoes
Mexican rice

1. To prepare the mole, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large saucepan on a medium-to-low heat
2. Add the onion, garlic, oregano, cumin and cinnamon
3. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for approximately 10 minutes
4. Add the freshly chopped chillis and masa harina
5. Continue to cook for 3-5 minutes
6. Begin to stir in the chicken stock, before increasing the heat and reducing the mixture
7. Once the mixture has reduced, remove from the heat, stir in the chocolate, and let the mole rest
8. In a separate saucepan, heat the olive oil before adding the chicken
9. Cook the chicken on a medium heat, before adding the mole
10. Cover and cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally
11. Part way through cooking, add the tomatillos and tomatoes
12. Near the end, remove the lip and add the remaining ingredients
13. Serve when ready

1. To prepare the Mexican rice, heat some oil in a small saucepan
2. Add 1 cup of long-grain rice
3. Stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes
4. Add chopped onion, tomatillo, tomato, paprika, and cumin
5. Pour in 1 cup of water and cover
6. Cook on a medium-to-low heat for 5 minutes, before removing from the heat
7. Let the rice steam for approximately 20 minutes before serving

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Tasting Notes