Beef with Mole Sauce and Tortillas
created by Challenger, Yosei Watanabe
Battle Mango
reverse-engineered by David J Rust

Ingredients:

Steps

1. Rehydrate the dried, chopped chiles in hot water (enough to cover) for about 20 minutes.

2. In a blender combine the remaining ingredients for the mole (white sesame seeds, raisins, tomatos, cinnamon) and add the rehydrated chiles with 1 tablespoon of the rehydration water from each. Puree until the contents of the blender are a thick paste. Put this in a bowl and set aside. This is the mole sauce.

3. Prepare the tortillas. In a bowl, mix the massa, water and mango puree. Blend together thoroughly. Spoon 6 mounds of this mixture onto wax paper, each spoonful about the size of a golfball. Round them out into balls and then flatten them with even pressure to form them into flat circles about a quarter of an inch thick.

4. On a flat skillet or a griddle on medium heat, place each flattened tortilla on the surface. There is no oil used in this step. Gently heat each tortilla through until the surfaces start to brown lightly. When each one is done, place it in a sealed container until needed.

5. For the meat, trim some of the excess fat from the beef, cube it and saute in a skillet until it browns. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chopped mango and continue to saute for 6-8 minutes.

6. Add the mole sauce, thoroughly combining it with the meat and mango. Slowly add the consumme and stir to combine. Keep simmering until the meat and mole mixture is thick. Pour onto a serving platter and sprinkle with more white sesame seeds and garnish with cillantro.

7. Serve the warm tortillas on the side so each diner can use one to wrap around the meat.

Serves 6 as a small entree.

Iron Chef Notes:

For some reason, I always associate mole sauce with chocolate flavor. However, the challenger included no chocolate in this dish. Upon further research, I found that my preconception was incorrect. Mole refers to the smoked and dried chile peppers that are used. Yes, many moles use chocolate, but hardly all of them.

Cooking Notes:

Making your own tortillas certainly sounds like fun, but it takes a little practice. There's no reason you can't find a good, corn tortilla in your own neighborhood market and use that, instead.