Chicken with Peanut and Red Chili Sauce (Pollo Encacahuatado)
- Makes4-6 servings
- Cook Time1½ hours
According to Jorge Fritz and Beto Estúa of Casa Jacaranda cooking school in Mexico City, there is disagreement about whether encacahuatado is a true mole. We’ll let the experts decide and debate, but we can say the dish does have delicious mole-like qualities: nuts and seeds as the foundation and dried chilies and spices providing layered, complex flavor. And it has a thick, rich sauciness that cloaks whatever it’s paired with. This is our chicken-based adaptation of the cerdo encacahuatado—“peanutted” pork—Fritz and Estúa taught us. The ingredient list here is long but only minimal knifework is required since the sauce is blended. Serve with rice and/or tortillas.
Don’t worry about salted versus unsalted peanuts in this recipe. Either will work. However, if your peanuts are extremely high in sodium, don’t add any salt at all to the blender, but make sure to taste the sauce at the end and adjust the seasoning.
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