Mole Verde

Mexico is a country of thousands of delicious sauces and green mole (mole verde) is one of them. Traditionally, this is made with herbs and greens, while the sauce is known as "pipián" with nuggets and other ground seeds. This recipe uses both seeds (pumpkin seed) and green leaves. It requires many ingredients, but the technique is simple.

1 chicken
Water
1 carrot
4 celery sticks
1 onion, peeled, halved
250g pumpkin seeds
1/2 large onion
3 garlic cloves
8 jalapeños chillies
1 can green tomatillos
1 head lettuce (romaine works well)
Leaves of 1 bunch of radishes
1 large bunch fresh coriander
1 lime

Put the chicken in a large pot and cover with water. Add the carrot, onion and celery and bring to a simmer. Cover the pan. Cook for around 1 hour 15 minutes (depending on the size of the chicken), until the chicken is cooked through. You might need to top the water up to keep the chicken submerged.

Roast the pepitas for about 5 minutes (pumpkin seeds) in a dry pan on the hob or in the oven at 180°C on a baking tray with no oil. Once they're roasted, set aside to cool and place in a blender or food processor and grind to a fine powder.

Wash and dry the lettuce leaves and radish leaves. Blend these with the coriander, tomatillos, chillies, onion and garlic, adding a ladle or two of the chicken stock from the pot to get a thick sauce.

Put the mixture in a pan and add the pumpkin seed powder to achieve the consistency desired, adding more ladles of stock if necessary to keep the sauce runny. Stir until it thickens and add salt at the end.

Remove the chicken from the pot and divide into individual servings: breast, wings, thighs.

Serve a portion of the cooked chicken covered with the mole sauce and top with more fresh chopped coriander. Add a few drops of lime to finish.

By Arturo Morales from Melbourne restaurant Los Amates
Recipe from: SBS.com.au [archive.org]