Pollo En Molé

I'm sliding easily into the rhythms of beach life. Although the slowness of my daughter's laptop tells me she is due for an upgrade before she dives into 3rd year of medskool.

Usually our main meal is lunch. I'm paying for this beach time by performing at night, so the evening meal will be barfed up before I go on. I mostly make it something like a peanut butter sandwich or another thing that won't be missed.

INGEDIENTS

One whole chicken
one jar of prepared molé sauce
one half a sleeve of Maria's Gamesa wafers
one half disc of Arbeulita® or Ibarra® chocolate

The day before, take and wash the chicken well. Remove the giblets and either discard the liver or give it to the cats. Put the neck, gizzard, heart and the whole carcass in the crockpot or other slow cooker and cover with water, add onion, garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Cook on low setting until the chicken legs feel loose and you're certain that the chicken is completely cooked. Put the whole thing into the refrigerator.

The next morning, take the chicken out and pick off the fat and remove any onion or other vegetable chunks. Cut the chicken into pieces and put it back in on top of the broth. Put it back on low setting.

Take one half of the jar of prepared molé sauce. I am a big ass fan of homemade but the prepared molés do a very adequate job without the forty'leven ingredients and the eighteen pans and the four days of standing there in the kitchen drudgery. Call me a pussy. I don't care. Put that into a saucepan with about half a cup of the chicken broth. Add in one half of the chocolate disc and whisk over a low heat until the sauce is smooth.

NOTE: There are passionate discourses about the superior qualities of both Arbuelita® and Ibarra® chocolate. The arguments are about the same as the Coke/Pepsi debate. If you can tell the difference enough to have a preference then, by all means, follow your preference. I use the one that I see first.

Take half a sleeve of the Gamesa wafers and put them into a sauté pan with a little splash of oil over a medium flame until they are toasted dark brown. It won't hurt a thing if they get a wee bit scorched but try to get them off the heat before they turn into charcoal. Put them in a blender with a touch of olive oil and make a paste. Stir this paste into the molé.

Now put this into the chicken and broth, stirring until it is smooth and completely bathes the chicken parts in sauce. Reduce the heat control on the crock pot to its lowest setting.

Serve over rice with plenty of tortillas on the side.

3B's