Dobladillas con Mole de Guajolote

[kirra]

Dobladillas con Mole de Guajolote

Ingredients:

Mole:

1 gallon turkey or chicken stock
2 chipotle chiles
3 ancho chiles
8 ounces mulato chile
2 ounces pasilla chile
1 cup almonds
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tomato
2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoon anis
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon cloves
1 Tablespoon coriander
1 slice white bread
1 corn tortilla
2 tablets mexican chocolate
1/2 cup manteca (you can substitute shortening but taste will suffer)
sugar to taste
salt to taste

Dobladillas:

2 pounds shredded turkey
24 corn tortillas
1/2 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup mexican crema, creme fraiche, or sour cream as a last resort
1 ounces queso anejo or queso fresco
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

Preparation:

Mole:
Seed the chiles and toast on a hot flat-top. The chiles will be aromatic when done. Do not overcook or char the chiles. Once the chiles are toasted, place in a bowl and add some of the stock, enough to cover the chiles. Soak for about 20 minutes.

Fry the tomato, garlic, cinnamon, anis, tortilla, bread and almonds in 1/4 cup of the lard. All ingredients should be fried separately as they all have different cooking points. If you fry them together some ingredients will burn. After frying, place drained ingredients in the bowl with your soaking chiles. You can choose to dry roast the ingredients instead of frying them. Make sure that the cinnamon and anis are aromatic.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl with the chiles. Add enough stock to the mixture to cover and let it cool.

After the mixture has cooled, place a portion in the blender and blend until smooth. You will have to blend in batches as the jar of the blender isn't big enough to hold all of the mixture. Place your blended mixture in a separate bowl.

In a cazuela place 1/4 cup of lard. Heat the cazuela until it is hot enough that a drip of water in the cazuela will sizzle. When it is hot enough add the mole to the cazuela. The mole should cook for an hour or two or until little puddles of black oil form on the top of the mole. Now you can assemble the dobladillas.

Dobladillas:
Heat the cooking oil in a skillet. When the oil is sufficiently hot you can put a wooden spoon in the skillet and it will quickly bubble. When the oil is hot place a tortilla in the oil and allow it to warm. The tortilla should remain pliable and not get crisp.

Place the tortillas between paper towels to soak up the excess oil. Add the next tortilla to the oil and keep on going until all the tortillas are done. The tortillas are coated with oil to keep them flexible so that they can be folded and so they do not disintegrate when the mole is applied.

Place some shredded turkey in the tortillas and fold in half. (Hence the name dobladillas which comes from the Spanish verb doblar, which means to fold.) Place on a platter and cover generously with the mole. Garnish with cream, onion and queso.

Notes:
When Mexicans make mole many times they will make a large amount and freeze the remainder for later consumption. The joy of mole is that the flavors become better over time. Reheating mole tends to marry the flavors and make the mole even better. Do not add meat to the mole when freezing. When reheating, you need to add some chicken stock and then add your meat. Moles are good with chicken, beef, pork, as well as turkey, shellfish and even chayotes.

This is a party dish that is not eaten on a daily basis. Lard is the traditional frying element in mole and is important for flavor as well as consistency. Recent studies show that lard may be as healthy as some other alternatives such as shortening, margarine, or other cooking oils. There is no substitute for it's flavor. Cooking oil is offered as a substitute but does not come close to matching the flavor or the consistency of the original recipe.

There are many recipes for mole. The word mole comes from the Spanish word moler, or to grind. It was thought by the Spanish at the time or the colonization of Mexico, that it was better for your nutritional intake for your food to be ground into a paste. Consequently the technique is important, but the ingredients are limited only by your imagination. Moles are flexible and open to interpretation and experimentation with different types of chiles, nuts, spices, seeds, etc. If you cannot find the types of chiles listed, feel free to experiment and create your own recipe.