Even though I spent the Milllennium New Year over in Mexico, I never did get to try a dish called Mole. Ever since then I have always wanted to make it but knew it involved many many ingredients, some of which could only really be found on the internet. And as much as I seem to spend all my spare time using my laptop, I am not very good at ordering food/specialist ingredients online.
Therefore, I never would be able to open up my cupboards to find an array of dried Mexican chillies with which to make this wonderful sounding roasted butternut squash and black bean mole. So what I did was to search for a recipe that would allow me to make a Mole easily. I know this means that I am foregoing the authenticity of this Mexican dish , but having made and tasted it, all I can say is that it’s muy muy bueno!
My version is vegetarian, not because I am, but because I had in mind this month’s “We Should Cocoa” challenge from Choclette (Chocolate Log Blog). She set the task of creating a veggie savoury dish using chocolate. And this is it!
Usually Mole is a chicken dish. Mine includes roasted butternut squash and black beans as it’s replacement and it worked very well indeed. The dish is incredibly rich, full of spices, toasted sesame seeds and good dark chocolate. The need for meat was not necessary, but seeing as the sauce is so good, I may just have to give it a go with chicken at some point.
The dish was based upon a recipe I found on the Waitrose website and can be found HERE.
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What I did was to replace the chicken by roasting a butternut squash (cut into small chunks & coated in olive oil) for 30 mins at 200 degrees. I added this to the sauce once it had cooked for 30 minutes along with a tin of black beans which had been drained and rinsed.
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The rest of the recipe I followed but did make a few alterations to it.
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Along with the spices, I added 1tsp oregano, 1/4 tsp mint and 2tbp of raisins.
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I also added the grated chocolate right at the end of the cooking time and just let it melt into the dish.
Sounds delicious, I love butternut squash and this sounds like a great way to serve it.
Thanks Janice, I love it too and this is a first for me. But, I will certainly be making it again!!x
This sounds wonderful, it’s nice to have some vegetarian recipes that can be as filling as a meat dish and this certainly looks filling and full of flavour.
Thanks! I agree in that it’s always good to have a few really tasty veggie meal ideas. Also, I like to eat meals that don’t just rely on meat as the central ingredient.
And, yes I also have learned from my mistakes 🙂
Thank you for your comments on my recent post Laura, it’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one who made this mistake – one I will not be making again!
This sounds so yummy! And I’m deeply envious, I spent the Millenium at a party inTeddington, it was fun (our boys were teenagers) lots of friends and their families, but not really glamourous like Mexico 🙂
It definitely was a trip to remember Jude! There were about 30 of us out there partying for 2 weeks before kids obviously and I wasn’t even married yet. I do love Mexican food and don’t cook it often enough x
that sounds yummy! i love the idea of chilli and chocolate together, and it’s brilliant htat you’ve substituted the mexican dried chilli peppers for something else that’s abit more easy to find and work with (:
Thanks! I can tell you it does taste good although I am sure would be amazing if I ever manage to get hold of some dried Adobo chillies 🙂
Laura using squash in this recipe is genius. Now you’ve pointed it out, I can imagine just how good it would be. I love squash anyway, but i think it would go really well with black beans and a good mole sauce. I did make mole once, years ago and it was a bit of a faff to say the least – absolutely delicious though. Thank you for participating in this rather difficult challenge.
Thanks Choclette! I know you would love this and I promise it isn’t too tricky to make, just whizz up all ingredients then cook :-)xx