Simple red Mole with meat, fowl and fruit

After much anticipation, I took my first stab at a traditional Mexican mole dish. Taking a conservative approach, I opted for the simplest of the 7 Oaxacan moles (only requiring 1.5 hours of active prep time!).

See the recipe images in the following blog post.

Review:

• the sauce was a bit runny than I would prefer, as well as a touch oily. Perhaps I didn't simmer at high enough temperature to reduce the sauce?
• The sauce was somewhat dominated by the apple cider vinegar ingredient, in my opinion. The ancho chilies were quite mild both in spiciness and flavor intensity in comparison.
• The pork was quite satisfactory, but not falling apart tender
• all in all, satisfying and Mexican-rustic in character

Modifications

• used skinless chicken drumsticks (de-skinned myself) instead of skinless chicken breast meat. This seemed to work well; simmered for a total of 25 or 30 minutes instead of the 13 minutes recommended for breast meat.

Notes:

• Used all the pre-ground spices to save time; I wonder how much this reduced the flavor intensity?
• waited until my plantain skin was on the order of 25% black. This seemed to be plenty ripe enough in the end (the cookbooks suggested that a fully ripe plantain is almost entirely black)
• using one of my tall, medium-width pots seem to provide plenty of room during the simmering process