John had brought back a bunch of what I thought were spice pastes from Mexico. It turns out they were mole “concentrates.” These concentrates did not list their ingredients, 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 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.
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