There are no short cuts to making Chicken Mole Enchiladas

(post, Sanura Weathers)

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This is a faux, non-traditional Mole sauce, because a slower cooker, a food processor, a blender and store-brought grounded spices were used to shorten the prepping time. The tomato sauce is the fool’s proof technique of preventing a bitter taste. If these steps in this recipe appear laborious, then compare the prepping steps of a traditional mole sauce.

Traditional mole sauces require time, commitment, and attention to details. There are many versions representing Mexico’s regions. Each tedious step is crucial to the final result. It’s not a last minute sauce made on a weekday, nor is it a soup that uses old ingredients before they spoil (Many delicious chili recipes are made by “cleaning out the fridge” with old ingredients). Spices are brought whole and individually toasted before grinding them finely with a mortar and a pestle. The bitterest chocolate is used not for its false look of sweetness, but its inner soul of taste. Corn tortilla shells are fried to a crisp and turned into a mealy texture. Along with corn tortillas, nuts and sesame seeds thicken the sauce to harmonize the complex ingredients, and its raw taste will melt away. Ancho chilies are seeded, because the seeds will add to much spicy heat to the pot. Mole sauce requires a weekend of prepping and cooking. It’s why it’s traditionally made for weddings and special occasions.

Using a slow cooker allows other projects requiring the same amount of time, commitment and attention to details to be completed as a traditional mole sauce. Depending on a schedule, the sauce will cook in a slow cooker for at least four hours on high to ten hours on low heat. That’s many hours of freelance work that could be completed. Prep the ingredients in the morning for an exotic meal in the evening. It’s nice to appear as if I have my life together all of the time.

Read more at My Life Runs on Food by Sanura Weathers.