The Temptress is a Molé

For those who may not be aware, the word molé (kind of pronounced mo-lay) means ‘sauce’ in the Mexican language. It’s a fairly generic term that covers all kinds of sauces, but outside of Mexico it tends to refer specifically to a dark chocolate brown chilli sauce, the molé poblano (poblano is a type of chilli). I’d say that the most common type of molé outside of Mexico is actually guacamole, ‘guaca’ meaning avocado. Traditionally, these sauces contain 20-30 ingredients, and can take days to prepare. They are considered a celebration food, so the effort is worth it.

One such celebration where molé is usually served is Dia de los Muertos – the Day of the Dead. This is a time where people remember and honour their dead and is usually held over two days, November 1-2. Since I first came across this holiday, I’ve found a real fascination and attraction to it. I’ve never been lucky enough to experience it first hand, but it appears to be such a colourful, happy celebration – the brightly painted sugar skulls, garlands of flowers, parades of skeletons in the streets, mariachi bands patrolling the cemeteries. In the western world, we treat death as taboo and with such bland seriousness. I find the Mexican attitude a lot…healthier? By celebrating the people who have passed on and accepting death as inevitable, there is a better appreciation for life.

Last year, I decided to cook up my own molé for Dia de los Muertos, using beer of course. Seeing as I am not Mexican, I’m wasn't too concerned about sticking to a traditional recipe. This was helpful because (a) traditional Mexican ingredients can be quite hard to find here, and (b) I had moved house a week prior to November 1st. There was no luxury of cooking for days. I’m surprised I managed to make anything more complicated than an Old El Paso kit. Traditional recipes also tend to use a lot of lard, which I’m not such a fan of. So, while not exactly traditional, this dish is still super tasty and barely takes hours, rather than days.

The beer of choice is the Holgate Temptress Chocolate Porter. It’s not uncommon for dark beers to be part of a Mole recipe, and this one has the added bonus of being a chocolate porter, enhancing the chocolate that is already added in the cooking.

Well she was just 17…

3 tablespoons oil (whatever mild-flavoured oil you have – I used light olive oil)
8 chicken thighs, or 4 legs, or an entire chicken cut into pieces, or use turkey if you have a big enough pot (turkey is more traditional, but they are bloody big birds)
1 onion, diced
1 capsicum, seeded and diced
1 poblano pepper, seeded and diced – you can use canned or dried if you don’t have access to fresh…which I don’t, so I used canned for this recipe.
3 cloves garlic, diced
2 teaspoons chilli powder (hotness dependant on your pain threshold)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup raisins
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup of Holgate Temptress chocolate porter (or another dark beer - bonus points if it contains chocolate)
2 teaspoons of peanut butter
1 teaspoon of salt
60 g of dark chocolate – the darker, the better

FOR SERVING:

warm corn tortillas
sour cream
fresh coriander, chopped

…and you know what I mean*

Place a large frypan on medium heat and heat half of the oil. Add your chicken (or turkey) pieces and brown on all sides. Once that has been done, remove to a plate, cover with foil and set aside.

Add the remaining oil to the same frypan and turn the heat down slightly. Sauté the onion, capsicum, poblano chilli and garlic until soft and slightly caramelized. Stir in the spices - chilli powder, cumin and cinnamon - and cook until fragrant (about 2-3 minutes should do it).

 

Add the tomatoes, raisins, chipotle, stock, beer, peanut butter and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often.

 

Transfer the sauce into a blender or food processor and add the chocolate. The heat from the sauce should melt the chocolate, allowing it to blend in. Process until you have a consistently smooth sauce.

Now, back to your chicken. Place the pieces into a deep, heavy cooking pot and pour the blended sauce over them. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Serve with warm corn tortillas, sour cream and fresh cilantro. You could also serve with rice, fresh salsa or sautéed greens.

The beer we drank with this was the excellent Mikeller Texas Ranger, which happens to be one of my fantasy beers. It’s a chipotle spiced porter, so the flavour profile of smoky, chilli heat with roasty, chocolate matches the mole pretty darn well.

* On a side note, in the Australian vernacular, the word ‘mole’ (pronounced MOLE) has a completely different meaning. I used to attend a pub bingo night where one of my favourite calls was for #17 – ‘Well she was just 17 and you know what I mean! What do I mean? She was a MOLE!’ By amazing co-incidence, there are 17 ingredients in this particular recipe.

Gardeners Pie (No Shepherds required)

Yes, this is another vegetarian recipe. Don’t act surprised, and before the carnivores all walk out in a huff I should point out that I actually had a request for more Vegetarian recipes. I am always both shocked and amazed when I discovered that someone has actually read the blog and taken the time to give me feedback, so I am more than happy to take their requests on board. It is certainly no problem for me to cook more vegetarian food. The good news for lovers of all things meaty is that once again you can use meat if you really want to.


Shepherds pie is made with lamb and cottage pie is made with beef, right? I’m going to call this ‘Gardeners Pie’ since its chock full of vegetable good ness. There was a suggestion it could be called ‘Brewers’ Pie’ as well, because I ended up using two different styles of beer in the finished product. Next time I might try for three.


This is one of the easiest pies in the world to make, due to the lack of pastry. You could put it in a pastry shell if you want, but it’s not necessary. It’s just a case of making the delicious savoury filling, covering it with delicious mashed potato and baking it the oven until delicious. I upped the delicious ante on this one by using Sean ‘Homebrew Chef’ Paxton’s roasted garlic IPA mash on top. This magic mash converted my mash-hating husband into a mash-lover, thus is the power of beer.

As it seems to be the case in most of my recipes, I just happened to have an appropriate bottle of beer in my cupboard - the Bridge Road Robust Porter. Porters are fantastic for cooking savoury dishes of both the vegetarian and meaty kinds, as they have the dark roasty flavour without being overly bitter. For the mash I used a Lobethal India Pale Al, but have made the same mash successfully with other IPAs. Only a small amount is used in the mash, so bitterness isn’t an issue. The hoppier the better though.


What to plant in your pie:

1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup diced shallots (or 1 medium brown onion, diced finely)
3 cloves garlic, diced finely
1 large carrot, grated
2 stalks celery, diced
½ cup frozen peas
½ cup frozen corn
1 bag quorn mince (or the equivalent amount of minced meat)
1 can brown lentils
1 bottle of porter
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon thyme*
1 tablespoon rosemary*
1 tbsp cornflour, mixed to a paste in 1 tbsp cold water
Salt & pepper

*I just happened to have these herbs on hand. You could sub them out for others – sage, bay leaf, parsley. Again its up to what you like or what you have.


The Mash Mulch (based on the Homebrew Chef recipe):

450g potatoes
1 head of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 sprigs thyme
Salt & pepper
½ cup butter
½ cup heavy cream
2-4 tablespoons IPA

Start by preparing the garlic for the mash. Preheat your oven to 150C.  Remove as much of the papery outside skin from the head of garlic as you can, then cut enough of the top of the head off in order to expose the tops of each clove.  Place it in the middle of a square of aluminium foil and drizzle olive oil over the top. Add a sprig of thyme and season with a little salt and pepper before wrapping up in a nice little parcel. Put on a baking tray and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

While the garlic is cooking, chop up your potatoes and place them in a pot, covered with cold water. Place on a high heat and bring to the boil. Cook until they are soft enough to pierce easily. Drain well and mash until smooth. (Or if you are fancy enough to have a ricer, put them through that.)

By now the garlic should be done (the original recipe says you know when it done, because the aroma will fill your entire house. It really does, and it is awesome!). Take it out of the oven, open the foil and allow to cool for five minutes.  Squeeze the cloves out of their skins and into a bowl, then mash with a fork until smooth.

In a small saucepan, place the butter, cream and 2 sprigs of thyme on to medium heat.  Bring to a boil, then turn down to low and simmer for 10 minutes.  Remove the thyme and add garlic paste and whisk to combine. Simmer another three to five minutes, then remove from the heat and add salt and pepper, and your IPA. Add the garlic cream to the mashed potatoes and fold in.  You might want to add half first, then check the flavour to see if it needs more garlic or IPA. I generally add the whole amount, but I like both garlic and hops.


Cultivating your pie:

Turn your oven to 180 degrees.

Slice and dice all of your vegetables. In a large saucepan, put 1 tablespoon of olive oil on low heat and sauté your onion and garlic until soft. Add the Quorn, breaking it up and cook until defrosted. Add the rest of the vegetables, stirring to combine, and cook for five or so minutes. (If you are using mince meat, add at the same time as you would add the quorn and cook well before adding the vegetables.)

Add the beer, Worcestershire sauce, herbs, tomato paste and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer for about 5 minutes, then add the cornflour paste and stir well. Allow to simmer until the sauce reduces and thickens nicely.

When the filling is ready, take your pie dish (or several small ones) and fill ¾. Top with the garlic IPA mash and ‘rake’ the surface with a fork. Some people might also put cheese on top, but considering the butter and cream in the mash, that could be considered overkill.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until the top has browned and filling is bubbling up around the edges.

You could serve with a green salad if you want even more veggies, or with some warm beer bread rolls if you'd like some extra carbs. As for beer, pair with something along the lines of a brown ale, or more porter - something dark, but not too serious.

Beer for Breakfast: Beery Baked Beans

That’s right – Beer is not just for dinner anymore. There's no reason you can't incorporate beer into every meal of the day, and this is just one way to break the fast with beery-ness. While I don't know the exact nutritional breakdown of this dish, I do know that beans are incredibly good for you - high in protein and fibre. Remember that old ditty that starts 'Beans, beans, good for the heart...'?

I came across the recipe for Blackhook Baked Beans in Stephen Beaumont's Brewpub Cookbook. I was very lucky to be gifted with a copy of this book, which contains recipes from 30 brewpubs in the US. Not all the recipes contain beer, but all have recommended beer matches. I would love to see a similar book put together in Australia. There are now a few breweries, pubs and restaurants out there that do awesome food and beer matching.

I was attracted to ths recipe because (a) I love beans, (b) it contains no meat and (c) it's very simple (although does take several hours cooking time). Oh, and of course it uses beer! The recipe calls for a porter, but I took it a step further and used an 8wired Big Smoke smoked porter. Most baked bean recipes do use some kind of cured, smoked meat product - bacon or ham hock for example - so to compensate I thought the lovely smoke flavour of this beer might add an extra dimension to the orignal recipe.

What you put in:

750g Dried Cannellini beans

1 medium brown onion, diced

2 tablespoons of mustard powder

2/3 cup of molasses

1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup of tomato sauce (or chilli sauce)

350ml porter

How you do it:

This recipe does require you to think quite a bit ahead. To start with, you need to soak your beans overnight. I'd never done this with cannellini beans before, and wow - do they expand! Make sure you do this in a bowl or container that will allow them to at least double in size. In addition to the overnight soaking, you need 7-8 hours for cooking and preparation, so keep this in mind if you want the beans for a specific meal. As I wanted them for breakfast I did all the cooking the day before.

Once you have soaked the beans, drain and rinse them off, then place in a large pot with fresh water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer the beans for an hour, or until they are tender. Drain the beans, but keep the cooking liquid. Put the beans into an oven proof dish and put your oven on 170 - 180 C.

Mix all your other ingrdients together in a large jug or bowl, then pour over the top of the beans. Stir it all together and then top it up with the reserved liquid that you simmered the beans in, making sure all the beans are covered. Cover with a lid or foil and place in the oven for 5-6 hours. Yes, really, that long.

Check on the beans every hour to hour and a half. If they are looking like they are drying out, add more of the reserved cooking liquid or more beer. Once the beans around the edge start to go all bown and caramelised, they're done.

You can use these beans for breakfast, but also as a side dish for lunch or dinner with sauasages or steak - it's an all round versitile dish. Remember that ditty I mentioned at the start? It does end with the line, '...so lets have beans with every meal!'

Serving suggestion

I do think my beans turned out a little dry. Next time I think I'll use less beans, or buy a bigger baking dish. This recipe does make a hell of a lot of beans - enough to feed a small army. My baking dish was pretty full though, and I don't think I had the space to add enough liquid. Also, I'm not really sure that the smoke flavour from the beer came through. It was definitely not noticeable, but I'd have to make a batch with a normal porter to see if there is a difference. That's okay - the beans are pretty tasty and I'll be more than happy to give this one a go again.