There's a difference between being 'frugal' and being 'cheap'. For example, I'm frugal (which I learned from my mother, who was kind enough to will me her treasured box of coupons.)
Being 'frugal' is being prudent with your money.
The prudent person moves to France to have immediate access to top-quality inexpensive cheese and breads. The frugal person watches what he spends his rapidly-dwindling cash on. The frugal person stays home eating chocolate and French pastries instead of doing something productive with his life.
The frugal person may need help.
Soon.
Yes, I am frugal.
...Am I not my mother's son?
But, sorry mom, today I spent 200€ ($240) on lunch.
And I don't regret it (gulp) at all.
Yet this same day, my local Pressing, where I bring my sumptuous linen sheets to be cleaned (which I bought by being cheap, and bargained for at a flea market), mistakenly overcharged me 60 centimes, which I didn't discover until I got home.
That 60 centimes will keep me awake tonight rather than the 200€ lunch at Astrance.
But mostly my frugality means that if I have just a tiny bit of something leftover, like a tablespoon of buttermilk, I'll make a batch of Buttermilk Pound Cakes. Or if I toast too many nuts and have a handful leftover, I'll make a batch of biscotti.
So when I remembered I had a small ramekin of chocolate-prune filling leftover from my Chocolat Macarons from Prune Blogging Thursday. I had to come up with an idea.
Of course!
The answer was obvious!
...Chocolate-Prune Mole...
(Well, that's the way my mind works. Go figure.)
Mole with Chocolate and Prunes
Makes enough for smothering one cooked chicken, or pork shoulder.
5 dried ancho dried chiles
1/3 cup sliced almonds
1 small onion, chopped
1-2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
½ cup chocolate prune macaron filling, or 1/4 cup raisins or diced prunes
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
1 cloves garlic, chopped
¼ teaspoon each: cinnamon, ground cloves, dried oregano, powdered cumin, ground coriander, ground anise seeds
3/4t salt, or to taste
freshly ground pepper
1 cup water (or more, as needed)
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted (omit if using leftover chocolate prune macaron filling, although I am so sure you don't have any leftover in your refrigerator...or do you?)
Soak chiles in very hot water until soft, about 30 minutes or so. (Make sure they're submerged by setting a lightweight bowl on top of the chiles.)
In a small skillet, sauté onion in vegetable oil until soft and translucent. Add garlic and sauté another minute. Add spices and herbs and cook, stirring constantly, for about 30 seconds, being careful not to let them burn.
In a blender, grind together the almonds, cooked onions and spices, chocolate prune macaron filling (or raisins and melted chocolate), sesame seeds, salt, pepper, and water. Puree until smooth.
Remove seeds and stems from the chiles and puree very finely, passing the chiles through a food mill. (If you don't have a food mill, press the puree through a mesh strainer to make remove any skins. Some people just puree them in, but they can be tough.) Blend the chile paste into the mole and add additional water, as necessary, until the consistency is the consistency of Silly Sand™.
Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
To make Chicken with Mole Sauce:
Brown poultry pieces quite well in a large casserole in vegetable oil. Once nice and brown, remove the chicken pieces from the pan and saute one chopped onion in the casserole and cook until translucent. Deglaze the casserole with some wine or stock, and scrape in any browned bits from the bottom with a flat wooden spatula.
Add the chicken back to the casserole along with a cinnamon stick or two, and add enough chicken stock, water, or white wine to cover chicken pieces. Cover the casserole, and gently simmer chicken until tender throughout.
Once cooked, remove chicken pieces from the liquid and arrange them in a shallow baking dish. Smear chicken pieces generously with mole and bake in a moderate oven, turning once or twice during baking, for about 30 minutes.
Serve with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.
Astrance
4, rue Beethoven
Tel: 01 40 50 84 40
Where do you get anchos from in France? I had a nightmare buying non-generic chili peppers when I lived in Paris (only for six months, but my, I went to a lot of grocery shops) - do you use the food hall at Galeries Lafayette, or go to Porte d'Ivry and try the Vietnamese places?
This mole sounds stupendous! The recipe will definitely be bookmarked to try in the future.
Oh! I am frugal too (also from my mom). I don't know that I could get over the guilt of spending $240 on lunch. I should work on that. But it sure sounds/looks like it was delicious. And the molé... you're the best, DL!
I'm very frugal too. I've made cookies out of potato chip crumbs and granola out of soybean pulp (from homemade soy milk). But I'm willing to pay more for quality food.
I just made a mole on my Nov. 01 post. I still have all those dried chilis and mexican chocolate hanging around and a few dried prunes from my basteeya (Prune blooging). I think I will make this!
You spent $240 on just yourself? No one else? And then you give us a recipe for mole? Might you mention what you ate, perhaps?
Hi Gail:
We had about 7 to 9 courses, including the two that I showed here on the blog.
We began with spoonfuls of a citrus mousse and little toasts with orange-scented butter. I can't remember everything I had (although I was with a chef from California who took notes and my other friend took photos...), then we had turbot with a nut and garlic paste (I thought the turbot was tough and tasted like a kickboard, but everyone else liked it).
There was a milk-fed pork with lovely wild mushrooms (there were wild mushrooms in just about every course, due to the season.) A 'surprise' soup was served, made of soaked bread crusts, that was yummy and reflected the chef's origins as an Auvergnate, and another course of nicely chopped raw shrimp with a hot mushroom broth spooned over it. The shrimp tasted great although the hot liquid and the cold shrimp made the whole thing eventually a lukewarm soup (my chef friends really liked it, but I'm a tough customer, and found it to be a fault.)
Oh yes, another course was a fabulous 'cake' made of raw white mushrooms and foie gras on a layer of crackly pastry with a tart citrus jell-like goo. Yummy!
The first dessert was a spicy bird's eye chile sorbet, whipped up in a Pacojet. Then there was a 'cake' built up of slices of raw apples and pears and a almond sabayon, served with a little shot of raspberry sorbet (which was a funny thing to serve alongside, but I liked them both). Then the last dessert course is shown in my post.
I would have liked to have had some chocolate for dessert, even a little bite. I think all restaurants, even with fixed menus, should give you a bit of chocolate (like a truffle, or anything that's just a mouthful.) Don't you?
All-in-all it was a lovely experience. Pricey, but considering the cost included all wine we drank, apertifs, water, coffee, service and tax, it was a treat. The staff could not have been nicer and more welcoming...without being solicitous (one thing I dislike in fancy restaurants) and the chef is young and we spoke with him in the tiny kitchen, stunned that all that amazing food come from such a little space.
BTW: Astrance is booked through December 27 (my birthday!) since they only have 25 seats, but we just took the metro over there, used our charm, and got lucky!
(My dinner that night was leftover pork shoulder with chocolate-mole...)
Just my sort of frugality. As long as we don't convince ourselves we are being supremely practical . Because it is entirely possible to go broke this way.Despite using up all the mayonaisse, or whatever!
That being said, I think one of the reasons people eat so much sad, bad food, is that food is underpriced for the effort and time it takes to provide it. We are conditioned to expect artifically cheap food and other products, too. Only the shoddiest can be produced for what we are willing to pay.
Basically, if we want better stuff, we have to be willing to have less of it, which is not a popular concept. Otherwise, craftspersons,small high-standard farmers and artisans will continue to be underpaid,and in danger of extinction, and we ordinary folk will continue to fill our homes with junky tv toys and nasty foodstuff.
If I sometimes had $240 in uncommitted funds, I would certainly be tempted to do something similar with it from time to time!
ooooo....
Oh, you poor boy.
You really DO miss Mexican food, don't you?
I have to stop lurking for a minute on this one! I live right around the corner from Astrance and have been wanting to go for some special celebration at some point over the next year. It sounds amazing! But is that their typical luncheon menu price? If so, not sure there will be any special event celebrated there anytime soon! Yikes!
I suspect we will be reading about and seeing photos from Astrance on another website soon.... Your mole sounds delicious and authentic. Probably the best Mexican food ever cooked in Paris! Congrats!
Allison: You live in the 16th, and can't afford to eat at Astrance? That is one pricey neighborhood! When I went for lunch, they had a few options for fixed-priced menus, the least expensive being 70 euros and an "Autumn Menu" for 120 euros. We chose the 150 euro menu, although I bet if you tried the other ones, you'd still have a lovely experience (BTW: Even though they were booked solid, we arrived at 12 noon and they fortunately had 2 unbooked tables for lunch, so since you're already in the neighborhood, perhaps you outta introduce yourself!)