I blended the chilies . . .
This is when the serious mess started. I started with a standard blender but the chilies wouldn’t sink to the blade. I switched to a smaller batches & a Magic Bullet. There was chili paste everywhere by now. And it will stain anything it can.
Then I fried & blended the rest of the ingredients (I had pre-baked the tomatoes). The aroma of the frying nut & spice stage was pretty intoxicating btw. By this point I was getting exhausted & I was heavily sampling a nice Rioja . . .
I combined all of the sauce incredients . . .
It looked like unappetizing mush. Really. I added more liquid & boiled it covered. It tasted like a mole but it needed sieving to reach a visually appetizing stage. More serious mess ensued. By now, I had used & washed & reused a whole jumble of pots & fry pans – especially since my wife decided to boil the carcass for soup concurrent to my cooking adventure. I finished the sieving & combined the sauce with the chicken . . .
And forgot the stupid sesame seeds altogether until we sat down to eat.
It was . . . just OK. Pungent & sweet with nutty, chocolaty, perfumed aroma & taste. A little bit went a long way – if you know what I mean. I had sampled as I cooked so I was tired of it by the time we ate. And my other critic said “Not worth the time, effort & mess”. I couldn’t argue with that.
Ian