Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Mexican Mole Dip

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on June 19 2008 | Leave A Comment

I suppose if you were to ask my friends and acquaintances to name one thing about me, many of them would tell you that I do quite like my food. I enjoy cooking almost as much as I enjoy eating, and consequently I’m always keen to try new flavours.

I’ve been aware of Mole sauce for some time, but I’ve always baulked at the idea of preparing it, mainly because it requires a stack of ingredients, takes a long time to get right, and is very easy to bugger up. Imagine then my delight when I clocked this jar among the rack of dips at my local Sainsbury’s. Yes folks, if you’re keen to get as much chocolate in your diet as you can, you can now dip your nachos, tortillas and crudities in a spicy sauce with chocolate. They’ve even used Mexican chocolate for an authentic flavour.

Of course there are other ingredients as well – tomatoes (naturally) spices (of course) and haricot beans for texture, but believe it or not the chocolate flavour does actually come through as a finishing note. It’s very subtle, a little bittersweet, but definitely there. The initial tastes are spicy tomato with chipotle and jalapeno making a fiery mixture, then as the fire dies away the dark chocolate comes through as an interesting (if somewhat bizarre at first) finishing note.

The label informs me that this is another limited edition, so I guess I may have to attempt my own mole sauce at some point after all, but for now, I’m enjoying this dip a lot. Give it a go if you like your chocolate spicy!

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Comments On This Post

  1. This is so NOT mole! I’m gasping at the audacity of Tesco’s. Mole is lovely and this dip may be lovely too but GAH! You can’t simply take savoury food, add chocolate and call it mole!

    *wanders off muttering*

  2. Um. Sainsbury’s, not Tesco’s, obviously. Bah. I was upset.

  3. Dom (Chocablog Staff)

    Wikipedia says “mole” is a generic term used for many different sauces. (I wouldn’t know as I never eat anything named after burrowing mammals.)

  4. “…In English, it often refers to a specific sauce which is known in Spanish by the more specific name mole poblano”

    Regardless, I’d love to see a version of mole in Mexico that includes those ingredients. There are variants – my argument is simply that this isn’t one of them.

  5. jewel

    sylvia, maybe i’m misunderstanding you, but is your argument that chocolate is NOT used in mole? because here in the southwest U.S. (Arizona, to be exact), where we live on mexican food, chocolate is a very common ingredient — definitely in mole poblano and mole negra.

    here is a page with quite a few different mole sauces, both authentic mexican recipes and some nice variations:
    http://www.ramekins.com/mole/recipesmole.html

    cheers,
    jewel in tucson

  6. jewel

    sorry, just wanted to make one more comment on mole — one of the coolest things about it is that it is so versatile and so individual, everyone has their own take on it, so there really is no incorrect way to make it — only individual interpretations.

    I have a mexican friend here in tucson who swears by adding peanut butter to his mole, and it is absolutely delicious. i know a lot of people who would scoff at his recipe, but it’s mole nonetheless — just his own version.

  7. Jewel, yes, you are misunderstanding me.

    Chocolate is used in mole.

    Adding chocolate to a sauce does not magically turn it into a mole.

    I’m not saying mole can’t be modified, but do you really feel that “a chunky tomato and haricot bean dip with chocolate” is a mole? It strikes me as a dip that happens to include chocolate. 🙂

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