Mole Recipe

Nothing spices up your Mexican feast like a good, homemade mole recipe sauce. Whether you put it on enchiladas or use it as a dipping sauce, a good mole is a staple in your party recipe cookbook. Here's an excellent mole recipe that doesn't require any fancy, hard to find ingredients.

Ingredients for mole: 

• 4 1/2 cups of chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons of oil (olive oil is best, vegetable oil is OK)
• 1 cup diced onion
• 3 tablespoons garlic (chopped)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 small pinch of ground cinnamon
• 2 1/2 tablespoons of chili powder
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 2 ounces of dark chocolate, cut into small pieces 3 tablespoons of All-purpose flour, used as a thickener.
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add onion, garlic, oregano, cumin and cinnamon to the mole sauce.
3. Cover and cook until the onion is clear and soft. This shouldn't take more than ten minutes, possibly less.
4. Add chili powder and half of the flour, stir for about three minutes.
5. Slowly whisk in chicken broth and add the tomato paste.  At this point, the sauce will appear pretty runny.
6. Increase temperature to high, and boil until sauce reduces by about half.
7. Turn heat down and add remaining ingredients, being careful to not burn the sauce.  If it appears too watery, add the remaining flour.
8. Remove from heat and serve warm!

Tip:

The cumin for this mole is optional. Some people don't love the taste of cumin, feel free to edit this out. You might want to substitute something that's more to your liking that will lend a smoky flavor to the mole sauce--something like cayenne pepper, perhaps, if you like more heat!)