Let's call it a victory, the chili was pretty good.

So I sampled my first post-gastric bypass chili con carne about 1 hour ago. Aside from a bit of mild discomfort in my gut, the Chili was pretty terrific. The beans seem to be producing some gas pressure which is a bit heavy on me right now.

My greatest error was that the beans turned out a tad bit under-done. They are not exactly hard, but they are not as soft as they should be. That's giving me some problems right now. This not cool. Next time, my beasn are going to make their own private trek through the pressure cooker. They are going to be mushy next time.

Once again, I don't know if this tastes like an authentic Mexican Mole Nego dish, but it was very mild, sweet and savory. That is probably a good thing considering my current medical condition. Still, I am bit puzzled. It is hard to understand how I could have obtained such a sweet and mild result given the variety and quantity Chiles I used in the production of my chil con carne.

Of course, I am well aware of the fact that not all chilles are hot. Some are sweet, some are savory, some are bitter, some are acidic and sour. There are all kinds of chiles. Nevertheless, some of my ingredients contained plenty of capsaicin. What would you say to 90,000 CA Cayenne pepper in the chili powder? How about the Pequin and Arbol chiles? They pack some stang.

You would never know it if you tried the chili I just made tonight. I guess next time I will have to add in the Habenero. I chickened out tonight because of the presence of the other chiles and my current medical status.

Next time Habenero.

So I took my first swing at Mole Negro tonight

And I don't know whether it worked or not. I will find out tomorrow.

For those who do not know, the word Mole is Spanish for sauce. It could be any sort of sauce, including a French-style pan sauce with cream. The term mole does not necessarily imply chocolate. We use term very loosely here in the USA. We think it referrers exclusively to the chocolate sauce that drives people bad-shit crazy. Mole Negro is the correct name for the world-famous chocolate sauce that Mexicans use to add much0-mando savory flavors to their meats. It might be any type of meat.

Mole Negro is considered a world-class piece of cuisine, and it is one of the most complex things you can try to cook. Take it from me, I just took a swing at a simple version of Mole Negro this evening. It was a project. There are a lot of ingredients. Further, these are not the sort of things a western-style cook has in his pantry. You have to go looking for some rare materials. Further, those materials have to be organized into sub-components, and assembled correctly... or you blew it.

The most interesting feature in my view was the way in which you counter the bitterness of the dark Mexican chocolate with the acid and sweetness of lime juice and lime zest. Further, there is an interesting balance of hot spicy chillies and sweet raisins and raw cane sugar. Hot and sweet. Ph factor 7 when you balance chocolate and lime. This is a very strange sauce.

My product had a very interesting flavor. I just don't have the slightest idea whether that flavor tastes like Mole Negro. I also wonder how things will turn out when I use this sauce tomorrow in it's final application.

What is that final application, you ask? I am finally going to make the Chili con Carne I have been craving. I am soaking the beans now. My frige is loaded with short ribs, pork spare ribs, and lamb shoulder steak. Tomorrow, I will rub these meats with a custom chili powder I got from Alton Brown, toss them on the barbecue to brown up, and then I will braise them in a pressure cooker for some 25 minutes using that mole sauce as the braising liquid.

Let's hope it turns out great. I won't know whether it is good bad or indifferent until the final chili con carne is sampled.

Of course, I won't be able to each much of this myself, but what are friends for anyhow?