I used the recipe for Mole Negro from Bricia Lopez’s Oaxaca, served with red rice, chipotle-avocado leaf black beans and pineapple and cucumber guacamole (those three recipes from Roberto Santibanez’s Truly Mexican, as was the poached chicken method).
I clearly need to work on my food presentation and photography (I admit I was in a bit of a rush to sit down and eat!), but overall I was happy with the results. The mole negro, made a couple of days ago, was great – intense, complex and rich. I had to make a couple of adjustments – rich tea biscuits instead of Maria cookies, purple sweet potato instead of plantain, but otherwise as close to the recipe as possible (including in burning the chilhuacle negro, mulato and pasilla peppers – something which went against all my cooking instincts but turned out really well).
The red rice needed better tomatoes (and I seeded them, without checking the recipe properly, which only said to core them, probably reducing the intensity of color and flavor), so I know I can improve that, the beans I was making for the second time and were a big hit with my wife, the guacamole was superb (my wife didn’t like the sound of the pineapple, but was converted – the balance with the avocado and cucumber was great).
As a pretty inexperienced cook of Mexican food, a Brit living in Taiwan (where so many ingredients are hard or impossible to get), I’m moderately happy with the results! A lot of sauce left – I think I’ll use some for tacos and some for chilaquiles.
by theescapedape2