Chili pepper eating contest - in India!

Chili peppers, which have no relationship to black pepper (Piper nigrum), are of a neotropical origin, but like all domesticated plants as they move around with people they get changed because different genotypes end up in different places and people select for different traits.  Many Indians do not know or believe that chili peppers are a relatively recent addition to their culture and cuisine.  In fact India now has a legitimate claim for having one of the hottest of chili peppers, the ghost chili, and here's a story about it in a chili-eating contest in India.  TPP likes spicy food, but these are chilis are just ridiculous!  As an aside, at the other end of the spectrum, the fried (mild!) chili peppers at Gram and Dun, a gastropub in KC, are just grand!

Mole Poblano - spicy chocolate sauce

Everyone is familiar enough with chocolate as a confection; thank you Daniel Peter. But chocolate was used as a cooking ingredient long before that. This weeks lab deals with stimulants, caffeine, nicotine, and theobromine, and the latter means chocolate, not as a confection, but as a traditional Mesoamerican cooking flavoring/spice. No better way of spicing up chicken or turkey than to make a simple mole. Sorry, my timing is bad especially if you had turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving and ran out of ideas. Here's a simple and milder version for my food wimpy and cooking averse students.

10 dried ancho** chili peppers
5 Tbsp almonds
2 cloves garlic
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 Tbsp sesame seeds (OK mixing some metaphors here*.)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chicken broth (save from cooking some chicken)
2 cups boiling water
2 onions chopped
1/2 cup raisins
2 Tbsp masa harina (maize flour)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground coriander
4 Tbsp cooking oil
2 oz Mexican chocolate (or use semisweet chocolate plus 4 tsp sugar, 1/8 tsp cinnamon, 2-3 drops of vanilla extract)

Soak peppers in boiling water until soft. Discard stems and seeds; save water. Put peppers, almonds onions, garlic, tomatoes, raisins, masa harina, sesame seeds, spices, into a blender with a few Tbsp of the pepper water. Blend at medium speed until a paste is formed. Add more water as necessary. Heat oil in a saucepan. Add chili paste and cook stirring 2-3 mins. Add chicken broth gradually, stirring. Add chocolate & stir until melted. Sauce should be the consistency of heavy cream. This can be frozen or refrigerated until later. Serve on tamales or chicken and cheese filled tortillas.

Poblano peppers are not scary hot, so this isn't as spicy hot as you might think. As as an even easier alternative, you can go to a Mexican grocery and buy a jar of Dona Maria or some other mole sauce, and then like everyone else, use the empty jar as a juice glass. Enjoy.

*Sesame, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, almonds, garlic, onions, and raisins were not part of moles prior to 1492 as all are of Old World origin, so traditional recipes would have used other ingredients, e.g., allspice instead of cloves.

**Poblano and ancho chili peppers are the same thing, but called the former when green and the latter when ripe, red, and dried. So why isn't it Mole Ancho? No idea.