After successfully using the stove last week, I thought I would try cooking something that had a high level of difficulty as well as risk. Something that could kill you if not done correctly — mole.
No, not an actual mole like that velvety-furred mammal with large powerful paws made for digging, but mole, the sauce commonly used in Mexican cuisine. 
Chicken, like other meat products, comes with a level of risk. This risk can be avoided if the chicken is treated appropriately. This does not mean that you have to make sure that the chicken was able to roam free in a 30-acre farm and that she had friends. It simply means that the process between getting the chicken from the freezer aisle in the grocery store to your mouth has to be a mindful one.
If not handled properly, chicken can give you salmonella. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1,027,561 people got salmonella in the U.S. during 2011. Out of that number, it estimates that 378 died. My basic math skills tell me that .037 percent of people that got salmonella died last year. Although a small percentage, I’d rather not run the risk.
If salmonella doesn’t kill you, it’ll at least put you out of commission for a few days. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, most people experience diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within 8 to 72 hours after eating contaminated food. Additional effects may include chills, headache, nausea and vomiting. Symptoms usually go away within four to seven days.
I invited some friends over for some quality dinner time — an early Valentine’s Day treat (you’re welcome). I warned them about the dangers of salmonella and did everything short of getting them to sign a waiver clearing me from legal responsibility if anything happened to them after eating the chicken. Unlike Pepperdine warning us about the SAC, I warned my friends about salmonella.
I went to the grocery store to get the things I needed for this meal and some shampoo. How much chicken you want to make is really up to you. Since I was going to feed at least four people I went with one of those precut thighs and legs packets. I also got one bag of rice, a can of tomato sauce, an onion, some garlic, a lime, some asparagus and a container of mole from my favorite aisle.
Making this meal was a three-part process. First I started with the chicken. The chicken has to be cooked first. To cook it, boil a pot of water. Throw a fifth of the onion and some salt in the water. How much salt you put is really up to your taste. I’ve always seen my mother pour salt into her cupped hand from a large container. When I asked her how she knew how much salt to put, she simply responded, “you just eyeball it.”
And eyeball it I did! Or at least I tried. Either way, I didn’t get any complaints about the chicken being too salty or not having enough salt.
Before you put the chicken in the pot you have to rinse it. This is where salmonella happens. On top of this you have to be careful about where you put the raw chicken and what it comes in contact with. If you use a knife to cut chicken, don’t use the knife to cut anything else until you wash it. When you put the chicken on the cutting board, wash it before you put anything else on it. Whenever you touch raw chicken with your bare hands, wash your hands right after. All these things prevent the cross-contamination of other foods and salmonella. 
Once the water starts to boil, you gently put in however much chicken you plan on eating. Cover the pot, but not completely because it’ll cause a riot in the kitchen, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Once 20 minutes pass, check the chicken with a fork. If the fork goes in smoothly, it means the chicken is ready. If ever in doubt, go for overcooked chicken instead of undercooked. Undercooked chicken can also cause salmonella.
Once the chicken is ready, take it out of the pot, and let it sit on some kind of container. This is where the fun with mole begins. When I told my friends I was making mole, one of them thought I was going to do it from scratch. Here’s a note on the history of mole and why I didn’t make it from scratch.
Mole originated in the three states of Mexico: Puebla, Oaxaca and Tlaxcala. Depending on what state you come from, mole will have anywhere between 26 to over 30 different ingredients (chili peppers, pepper, achiote, clove, anise, tomatoes, garlic, sesame seeds, etc.). All of the ingredients are roasted and ground into a fine powder or paste. This process is hard. Allegedly, it can take up to a day. The powder or paste is then mixed with water until it turns into a very thick sauce.
The mole container that you can buy at the store is a paste. You simply put it in a pan or pot, add water (more water than paste) and stir it until it reaches a sauce-like substance.
Once I had achieved that, I added the cooked chicken, made sure to cover it all in the mole and just let it sit there for a few minutes before turning the flame off.
It is relatively simple to make the accompanying rice. Start with a tablespoon of butter in a pot. Add some thin slices of onion and a piece of garlic. Once that looks a little transparent, add the rice. Stir it, otherwise it will burn and stick to the bottom, until the rice loses it color. Then add a can of tomato sauce. Keep stirring for a little more, then add one and a half cup of water. Put a lid on it, and let it sit there until the water evaporates. If the rice is chewy once all the water has evaporated, add more water until the rice has the texture of some other rice you’ve eaten before.
For the accompanying asparagus, put a tablespoon of butter on a pan before adding the asparagus. Then add half a lime to the pan and simply cook the asparagus.
Lastly, something that my mother does that adds a lot of flavor to the meal is onion marinated in lime juice. Simply cut some thin slices of onion, put them in a container and squeeze a lime over it and a little bit of salt. When you eat this with the mole, the stark contrast of the two (mole is typically a bit on the sweeter side, and lime and onion — well, lime and onion are just not) makes the whole experience a lot more flavorful.
It’s been more than 72 hours and we have not experienced diarrhea, abdominal cramps or a fever, which leads me to call this dinner a success!
