Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Mole de Olla

½ lb. dried pasilla chiles
¼ lb. dried California chiles
Oil
2 slices white bread
1/3 c. or 25 blanched whole almonds
4 whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
6 peppercorns
3 cloves garlic
½ medium onion, cut in half
1 large tomato, roasted and peeled
1 cooked chicken, bone and skin removed
Salt

Cover dry chiles with boiling water and soak until soft. Drain, remove stems and seeds and scrape pulp from peel. If scraping chiles is difficult, place in blender with a little of the soaking water, blend until pureed and rub through a sieve.
Heat a small amount of oil in skillet. Add bread slices, fry lightly and remove. Then fry almonds, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns, garlic and onion. Remove, drain and set aside.
In same skillet heat chile mixture. Combine chile mixture, bread, almonds, cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns, garlic, onion and tomato in blender and blend until smooth and slightly thick in consistency. Use broth from cooking chicken liquid for blending. Strain mixture.
Heat a little oil in saucepan, add blended mixture and salt to taste; simmer for about 20 minutes. Cut chicken in pieces. Add chicken to chile mixture and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until heated through. Serves 5 to 6.