Mrs J has been aware through books and TV that there is such a thing as Mexican Mole sauce but she has never actually had any – not even in a restaurant. Until now that is.

Here’s Mrs J’s Euro version of oven baked chicken “Mole”. No guarantees that it resembles anything like authentic Mole sauce. In fact Mrs J is fairly sure it doesn’t. But it fits nicely in the chocolate themed menu!

Chocolate dessert coming up in part II, in case you were wondering.

For the chicken you’ll need 1 dl of tomato paste, 1 chicken stock cube, 400 g of liquid chicken stock, 1 and 1/4 dl brown sugar, 1/4 dl chili powder, 2 tbsp ground cinnamon, 2 tbsp ground cumin, 4 tbsp creamy peanut butter, 3 roughly chopped cloves of garlic and 3/4 roughly chopped raisins.

Put all of it in your mixer.

At this point it will look like a science experiment gone horribly wrong. Don’t panic! Don’t look! Just blitz until smooth. Then pour the mix into your oven proof pot.

Add 1/4 dl of almond paste and about 100 g of good dark chocolate. Mix well while heating just until the chocolate has melted.

Add salt to taste (about one teaspoon should do it). Add more sugar and/or chili powder if you want it sweeter and/or hotter. Then add your chicken.

Mrs J used chicken on the bone but already cut. The sauce should cover the chicken (you can probably fit about 1-1.5 kg). Cover and cook in the oven at 100°C.

When the dish is completely done the sauce is well darkened and the chicken falls off the bones (about 5 hours).

Get the chicken out and off the bone. Remove excess skin. This is a fairly messy process. You have been warned.

Keep the sauce warm while you’re messing about with the chicken. Also, strain the sauce if necessary, you may have little bits of skin and bone swimming around in it at this point.

Serve the chicken with the sauce and toasted tortillas. Some rice, sour cream and a nice salad completes the main dish. Stick a sprig of flat leaf parsley on it if you feel like being fancy – or simply get stuck in!