Friday Night Mexican: Mole Amarillo Explosion!

Enough stupid substitutions! It was time to make something properly for once, even if it meant trekking all the way across town to get one ingredient. And there you have them: Guajillo Chiles. Because we were looking for dried ones, there was some hope that they would be found in the international aisle of our local grocery store. The only thing we found were more varieties of Herdez salsa. Although one particular specialty store has Guajillos advertised on their website, they had none. However, a tiny store right across the street has a virtually unlimited supply. May we present: Good Price Grocery Store!

View Larger Map

The Kensington Market is nothing short of a spectacle. So when I saw "El Buen Precio / Tienda Hispana" I knew that I had found what I was looking for. Don't be alarmed by the appearance; just about the entire store front is covered in graffiti and posters advertising who knows what. Once inside you can find all of those things you've been looking for. They have tortilla presses, Mexican cheese, Jarritos, canned foods, all manner of chile peppers, and an apparently well stocked media section. No more broken dreams at the hands of the grocery giants; everything we need is a street car ride away.

One of our industrial design professors developed the concept of "useness". Things that are new have a certain value because they're new; think new car smell. Alternatively, certain objects benefit from being used like a pair of jeans, a baseball glove or a cast iron frying pan. We like to think that cookbooks are one of those things that benefit from being used. You should be able to determine which cookbook is a family's favourite by how beat up and dirty it is. It should also fall open to the most popular recipe. In one hasty instant in the kitchen, I applied a thick layer of useness to Rick Bayless' Mexican Everyday and made sure that it now opens automatically to this week's recipe Chicken in Oaxacan Yellow Mole with Green Beans and Chayote.

Now, a food processor won't let you turn it on with the lid off. However, a blender is totally indifferent to your frantic kitchen actions, and a misplaced finger in an attempt to free the jar from the base will send your mole skywards, cookbookwards, pantwards and in just about every other direction possible. That's why there is a little bit of a gap in the progression of this week's pictures.

So here is where we pick up. I've blended the Guajillo Chiles, some tomatoes, onion, garlic, chicken broth and a handful of spices and strained it into a pot containing some hot oil. That gets cooked down and receives some more chicken broth thickened with masa harina.

Into the mole we dropped some cut up chicken thighs, green beans, and Chayotes. Chayotes were completely new to us until we made the Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas in Fiesta at Rick's. And I'm not talking about those vegetables you see at the grocery store and never buy, like a rutabaga or celery root; I'm talking about never even having heard tell of these before. Luckily, the All New Good Housekeeping Cookbook is as much an encyclopedia of food as it is a cookbook. And more lucky than that, our local Metro grocery store actually carries them. Remember the cafeteria in high school, where all of the weird kids (guilty) would sit at one table? The chayotes are at that table in the grocery store.

So there is everything, just simmering away on the stove. We said no substitutions in this one, but one substition at the end was sanctioned by Senor Bayless. You're supposed to drop in some hoja santa leaves but Rick says it's okay to use cilantro because not everybody has hoja santa just hanging around. Now that it's on our radar, we'll have to keep an eye out for it.

So there it all is! Chicken in Yellow Mole, some corn chips, black beans done in the slow cooker, and red rice. Hiding in the corner is the guacamole. After having done the black beans in the slow cooker with the onion and the lard, I'm not sure if we'll be able to cook beans any other way.

The lighting in this picture makes of think of that scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey where they've uncovered the monolith on the moon. In addition to being really tasty on day one, we laid out the left over corn chips, put the chicken and mole, beans, and some cheese on top and made some great nachos for day two.

In Pursuit of Mexican Everyday

Our fridge often looks like a rain forest with the amount of herbs we've been plowing through but we've found that they don't always keep incredibly well. We've got some herb pods but they're small and finicky. We also have a large bay window that up until this point hasn't been used for much besides watching the world go by. So we determined that we would start growing our own herbs, and that this was the place to do it.

May we present "The Deck"

It's amazing what $40 at home depot will get you.

You also have to have the tools and the know-how to do it.

Note: If you compare the molding under the window to the surface of the deck, something looks off. The house is 75 years old; the deck, 1 day. I'll let you guess which is truly level.