John had brought back a bunch of what I thought were spice pastes from Mexico. It turns out they were mole "concentrates." (As I said, spice pastes.) These concentrates did not list their ingredients and so it was up to me to figure out what was in them and how we could use them. Frankly I did not really care what was in the pastes, my concern was whether or not they tasted good and what they could be paired with. I set about tasting and examining at the ingredients we had on hand. I ended up taking one of the pastes and slathering it on calamari a few hours before we cooked it. I used the same paste to season some beautiful tomatoes I wanted to pair with the calamari. When it was time to cook we fired up John's XL Egg with a dome temperature exceeding 700°F. Then we put the calamari in place for a quick bite of heat. They were done in about 2 minutes. We removed them from the grill and doused them with lime juice. When they were cool we cut them into thin rings and folded them into the tomatoes and added a handful of freshly cut chives. Delicious.
Years Past
