Survival Sunday 237: Chicken Mole

Chicken Mole with Buttered Rice

Good afternoon friends! I have discovered the joys of mole (pronounce Moe-Lay) and am a full convert, but more of that in a moment. Here's what you'll need for today's recipe:

Chicken broth, leftover chicken, mole paste, water, rice, and butter (which is hiding behind the broth)

I find that having your ingredients pre-measured in this case is a very, very good idea. Thankfully, everything I've got has instructions on it, so I just followed the instructions for four servings of rice, which was written right on the bag!

In this case it was a 1 to 2 ratio - one part rice to two parts water.
One cup of uncooked rice and two cups of water make four servings.

I started with the rice and hacked of a tablespoon of butter to dump in the pan.

It's a very big pan.

Then I added the rice and turned the heat to low, melting the butter and stirring it around so that all of the rice was coated. It turned a little golden, which is absolutely fine! That just means you're developing a lot of lovely flavor in your rice. It'll whiten right back up once you've cooked it.

This was also the point where my "kitchen helper" became decidedly unhelpful and began nipping the backs of my legs because I wouldn't stop what I was doing and go sit down to be her living couch...

Eventually, she gave up and decided to go eat some of her breakfast...

Once the butter was completely melted, I poured the water in. Despite being on very low heat, the pan was hot enough to instantly boil the first couple of splashes, but the full two cups quickly overwhelmed the heat from the pan and I had to turn up the heat to get a full boil.

Once it was boiling, however, I covered the pot with its lid and quickly turned the heat back to the lowest setting.

With the rice bubbling away quietly on the back burner, I set the timer for 9 minutes (because last time I went the full 15 it said on the bag, it burned horribly) and got to work on my mole.

The jar gave a 1:3 ratio - one part paste to three parts liquid.

I carved out a tablespoon or so of the mole paste, which was gritty feeling and smelled very rich and sweet. Then I added three tablespoons or so of chicken broth. I turned the heat to the lowest setting, and began to stir.

Believe it or not, this was several minutes into stirring the mixture. It's slow going at first.

Once I realized that things were going to take a while, I relaxed and started stirring the mole more gently. As the paste and the broth mingled and combined, the smell went from sweet-but-spicy to deep-dark-rich-sweet-spicy, and I knew I was going to love it.

Pretty much the second the paste incorporates, the mole thickens.
Be ready to cut this with more broth!

Once the mole was thick and smooth and slightly bubbly, I began adding chicken. Since the chicken was cold from the fridge, I knew it would cool everything else, so I left the heat on at first. By the third handful, however, I knew it was time to turn off the heat and just let the mole heat the chicken on its own!

Picture taken as I was being assaulted by the cat again...
Trust me, though, it looked great!

Nine minutes was plenty of time for my rice, which I turned off and let finish steaming while I worked on the mole. When I felt they were both finished, I took out the portion of the rice I was taking with me and put it in a microwave safe container. I was planning on eating this a few hours later, after all. My mother was an excellent test case for it, though, because she came home as I was working on the meal and I gave her some for lunch! She ate all of it, so I guess she liked it, lol!

Our finished rice being spooned out with a mole-covered spoon.
I'm not worried about cross-contamination.

The actual chicken mole itself was spooned on top of the rice, and it looked... well... see for yourself:

Beautiful. It's simply gorgeous.

Sweet and spicy, dark and mysterious, and absolutely delicious, this was one of the best meals I think I've made since that chili last year. I could seriously eat this three times a week and be very, very happy.

If you find some mole paste at your local supermarket (and remember, I live in the middle of nowhere, so if it's at one of my stores, you've probably got some somewhere), definitely give it a try! I'd recommend adding some veggies to your mole - maybe some onions and peppers? - and trying it with yellow rice. I'd also love to experiment with putting it in tortillas, because... mole taco? Yes please!

And since you've been so good and read to the end, here's your prize:

That'll about do it for me, today.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Survival Sunday 235: Noodles and Rice

Spicy noodles and tasty salmon rice courtesy of Umai Crate

I think that Umai crate has been one of the coolest things introduced to the world since pre-sliced bread. I know that, for those of you living in larger metropolitan areas, the allure of multiple types of instant noodles and side-dishes is less impressive, but I live in a Maruchan town. Seriously. It's hard to find different kinds of noodle around here. Like - nearly impossible...

So to have noodles from Japanese stores appear on my doorstep every month is a blessing.

The closest legit Asian grocery stores are about... 80 miles away. And I cannot drive. And I have no money. This is the best way for me to get good noodz!

Inadvertent advertisement aside, however, here are two different dishes I tried from Umai Crate this month... uh... last month, technically. Happy September?

(ooh, I'm gonna have to start planning for Falloween 2019!)

I'm not 100% sure what this one was called, but it's Nongshim.
They make the blast-your-face-off spicy Shin Cups.
I knew what I was getting into.

Look, I like spicy food. I really enjoy having that fiery heat toasting my lips and draining my sinuses for hours afterwards. Nongshim foods have tended to hit the extreme upper limit of my capacity for capsaicin. That being said, I had a good feeling about this interesting setup:

You don't cook the noodles in the tray - it's not sturdy enough for boiling water.

Red can be very alarming color to see in foods. In meat, it tends to mean that it's improperly prepared. In vegetables, that means beets (which I don't really like, sorry). In noodles, it means you're going to lose some tastebuds to the heat. And boy, was this a red dish.

I don't know exactly what this says, but... I'm guessing it says "liquid fire".
Because that's what was in it.
Culinary plasma.

The noodles were fairly unassuming - dried and nestled together in their pretty little puck.

A faint, brown rice-y smell rose from them that I found incredibly pleasant.

After preparing (and cooling) the noodles, I was left with a decent tangle of noodz in the bottom of my enormous dish.

They were so slippery that I almost lost them down the sink while rinsing them!

And of course, then it was time to apply the death sauce. I say this because these noodles, man...

I mean, look at how red that sauce is in there. You know that's some prime peppery hotness.

I loved these noodz to death. They nearly killed me, since I was an idiot and ate them in the middle of a week-long acid reflux attack that kept me up for several nights, but they were delicious. The heat felt cold going down my throat. It was like swallowing dry ice (which I DO NOT RECOMMEND). Then the heat would blossom up and set my lips on fire. I think it may have actually given me chemical burns on my tongue, because there are some smoothed-out patches now that weren't there before... 10/10 would eat again. Perfect on a toasty day.


About a week after the noodles, however, I had some leftover rice at home. It was just some long grain white rice that had been boiled and buttered and left in the fridge for a couple days, but that didn't matter to me. I had plans.

Plans that only used one of those bags. The one with the scale/wave pattern.

Umai Crate occasionally sends more than just noodles, after all. Sometimes you'll get a cute kitchen sponge or egg ring. Sometimes it's a spoon or chopsticks. Sometimes you'll get spices or furikake or things you can add to rice!

This time, we had a bag with dried salmon, seaweed, and green tea. I wasn't sure how I'd like it, since I'm not really into green tea (I love the smell, but sometimes I can't handle the flavor). I also wasn't sure how it would go with the butter on the rice.

We were also going to attempt to add the shiso furikake in the smaller purple bag,
but we decided at the last minute to stick with the salmon stuff alone.

I boiled up some water in a kettle, then sprinkled the salmon furikake stuff all over the bowl of rice. I didn't even heat the rice up. I figured boiling water would do the trick.

I wasn't wrong, either.
It warmed up perfectly.

You can't really see the salmon in that shot, but it reconstituted really well. The overall effect of the topping and the buttered rice mixing with the water was marvelous - the rice became more tender, the salty flavor of the butter and the salmon and the furikake seaweed was evened out by the creaminess of the butter, and everything tasted wonderful. There was a faint green tea undertone that was actually addictive, even for me, a tea-hater.

10/10 would eat again. Can't wait for more leftover rice!!!

So that's all from me this week. Sadly, I haven't made a video this week, so we'll have to hope that I get on that for next week :P

Go Enjoy Something!
FC