Since L. and I are moving soon, I have been foraging a fair amount in the kitchen when menu planning so that there will be less supplies to take with us. Tonight, the last of my painstakingly made and absolutely delicious Oaxacan Mole Negro got used and this certainly ramped up the oomph on what could have been a "meh" dinner bowl. Though there are a lot of elements, this is really easy to make. Go crazy with toppings if you make this. Use whatever you have on hand; try to vary colors, shapes and textures. Below is not a recipe per se, but a list of suggestions.
I started building the bowl with the grain element of the dish and used a mix of half wild rice and half brown rice. I dressed the cooked rice with a sushi ginger based dressing because I worried that the completed dish would be slightly little-Johnny-one-note without it. Wheat berries or quinoa would work well here. Just make your usual vinaigrette and toss the warm grains with it, along with whatever chopped herbs you have on hand and, as mentioned above, some chopped sushi ginger and a splash of the sushi ginger brine.
Then there is the bean portion of the dish. Canned black beans would be good, as would a generous dollop of refried beans. I had a half package of dried pinto beans whose time had come, and I cooked them slowly with a bay leaf, some garlic and some cumin. I tossed them in a little of the mole before adding them to the bowl.
I considered tofu for the protein portion of the bowl but, since i had some cooked chicken in the fridge, just tossed it in some mole and heated it through. You could even use shredded rotisserie chicken, or make some meatballs that you could sear and then cook in the mole.
I highly recommend going the extra mile and cooking plantain chips, which are so easy and whose sweetness certainly works well with the mole. All you have to do is cut peeled green plantains diagonally to create more contact surface, add a slick of oil to a pan, and cook the plantain pieces for 90 seconds on one side, and a minute on the other. Little bit of salt and, hey presto, gorgeously caramelized, sweet chips for the dish. If you didn't want to do that, a bit of fresh mango or pineapple would work as well.
Last but not least, toss some sliced avocado in lemon juice, ditto some green leaves and you are pretty much ready to go. I added some red pepper for color and texture, before drizzling a bit more mole here and there.
If you make this, let me know what you used for future reference!
#saladsandvegetables #vegetarian (use tofu instead of chicken)
Comments