Chicken Mole Enchiladas (Enmoladas)

I have to admit that I am no expert in cooking Mexican food, and whenever I try to make it at home, it never tastes as good as real authentic Mexican food that you can find at places such as Nuevo Leon (that has some of the best Mexican food in Chicago and I would recommend going there if you have not tried it) or homemade Mexican food that we tried at our friends' house.  But since we both love Mexican cuisine, we try to make it at home often and I feel that we are gradually getting better. : )  Mexican food is not easily made and often requires ingredients that we can not easily get.

The Mole sauce is made with chocolate and chili peppers and of course it tastes better when it is home made, but I already had this store-bought Mole paste that I used for this recipe.  If you do not like Mole sauce, you can substitute it by just using regular Enchilada sauce.

This time we had a store-bought guacamole, but we usually like to make it at home and serve with corn chips.

So here is my version of the Chicken Mole Enchiladas or Enmoladas that I made for dinner today.

Ingredients: (Serving Size: 2)
- 2 chicken breasts (cooked and shredded)
- 1/2 cup of Mole paste
- 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth or water
- 6 corn tortillas
- oil for cooking (in this case I used canola oil)
- shredded cheese (I used Chihuahua cheese)

Directions:
- Cook chicken breasts and shred (This time I baked the chicken with onions and some olive oil and seasoned it with salt, pepper, paprika and you can add some herbs or cayenne pepper to make it more spicy.  You can also boil the chicken with some chopped onion, jalapeno peppers, hot sauce, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and shred it with forks after it cools)

- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Mix Mole paste and chicken broth/water in a pan and heat up on low heat, stirring constantly.

- When Mole sauce is heated, pour about 2 tablespoons of it onto the shredded chicken and mix to add some moisture - add salt and pepper and cayenne pepper to chicken if needed
- Pour the Mole sauce into a dish from which it will be easy to dip tortillas and place close to the stove.
- Place a baking dish close to the stove as well
- Heat oil in a frying pan and fry tortillas for about 15 seconds each on both sides.

- Stack tortillas on a plate and let cool a little so they are easy to handle and not too hot to touch

- Dip the first tortilla in Mole sauce on both sides and place in the baking dish

- Place about 3 tablespoons of chicken on the tortilla and form into a log
- Sprinkle some cheese (and you can add some chopped up cilantro) over the chicken and roll it, turning the finish end to the bottom of the baking pan

- Do the same with the rest of the tortillas and place next to each other in the baking pan

- Pour the remaining Mole sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese

- You can reserve some Mole sauce for the end and top the already baked enchiladas with it
- Bake enchiladas for about 15-20 minutes
- When serving, you can top enchiladas with sour cream (crema) and serve with refried beans, rice and guacamole

For refried beans, I sauteed some garlic and dried chili pepper for a minute, then added canned pinto beans (drained the liquid from the beans and saved it for later), added beans to the garlic and chili pepper and sauteed for about 15 minutes, mashing the beans gradually with the spatula.  If the beans get too try, I added some of the preserved liquid to make them more moist.  When done, transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle shredded cheese on top.

This is my version of the Chicken Mole Enchiladas (Enmoladas).  The enchiladas did end up breaking a little when I served them, but not as bad as they did in the past when I tried making them, so I am gradually getting better.  I would love to learn how to make them even better, so if you have any suggestions on how to make them more authentic, please send me a message and I will try it next time.  If this is your first time making them, please let me know if you have any questions and how they turned out!  

Buen provecho! : )