holy mole

Oh, Mole (pronounced MOH-lay), one of my favorite things in this world. The rich, and earthy
sauce, which has almost no precedence in Mexican cuisine, is also sadly misunderstood and misinterpreted (even my well-rounded foodie friends here in New York don't understand).
It could be because, well frankly, New York is not the easiest place to find really spectacular Mexican food. More probable a reason is its famed difficulty to make and cumbersome list of ingredients. My enduring fascination with this sauce means I will go to great lengths to find it, eat it, and make it. Once you understand the basic idea, making mole, or knowing a good mole when you see one, becomes easy.

I acquired this itty-bitty obsession during my first trip to Oaxaca in the winter of 2002. Much like when I moved to New York and immediately set out to find the city's best pizza slice, I spent an entire month in Mexico probing Mercado's, restaurants and hole-in the wall lunch spots looking to satiate my newly acquired mole addiction.
What I came to understand is that there are many versions of this sauce that vary regionally as well as by individual interpretation. Mole, which comes from the root "Molina," translates to mean something like ground or mixed, which just refers to the process of making the sauce. It comes in many colors and flavor combinations, and is made for a range of different occasions, like Quinceñera's, birthdays, and holiday's. What makes it a mole sauce is that the combinations of ingredients, what ever they may be, are toasted or fried until just before caramelization begins, and then combined into a smooth sauce. Most contain nuts, sesame, peanut, or almond in some combination. I've tried most of them, but I prefer Mole Negro and Mole Poblano to the others.

I have attempted to make the notoriously laborious sauce a few times, strictly adhering to a recipe from the Pasqual's Cafe cookbook. The first attempt took place a few years ago, and was quite the comical marathon of toasting, frying, and blending in collaboration with my mother that left her kitchen in shambles and our relationship barely in tact. This year, as I realized I would not be making any trips to Mexico, I felt like it was time to refine my mole making skills, and come up with a recipe I can easily replicate without too much fuss. So I invited a friend from Mexico over for dinner, and set off for the Bronx to visit La Oaxaqueña, a great tiendita with extremely helpful owners that stock all things Mexican, to track down all the necessary ingredients.

The first time I tasted Mole Poblano was at a friends college graduation party in Albuquerque's North Valley. This particular neighborhood in Albuquerque is a place where old hacienda-style ranches (and modern one's too) still sit on acres of farmland irrigated by the Rio Grande River, cottonwoood trees line the dirt roads, and the smells of desert sage and lavender fill your nostrils. At this particular party, in typical New Mexican fashion, the backyard was decorated with colorful papel picado banners, the beers were icy cold corona's, and I'm pretty sure there were some chicharron's being passed around by my friends Abeulo. I can even recall the moment the clay baking dish arrived on the table, the chicken bones protruding from the bubbling brick colored mole and the distinct, yet indescribable aroma, a balance between piquant chiles, smoke, and chocolate in perfect harmony. The chicken was falling off the bone-good and mingled effortlessly with the mole sauce. I was hooked. After that first taste, any chance I could I was ordering mole enchiladas, mole tamales, and even tacos doused with mole sauce. It wasn't hard to find in New Mexico, a place, much like the food, is so infused with a mixture of Mexican, Hispano, Spanish, and Native American history and culture, that it defies straightforward definition and makes the border between our southern neighbors seem as flimsy and irrelevant as the colored dotted line on a map.




The recipe below was adapted from both the Pasqual's Cafe recipe and one from the Fonda San Miguel cookbook.

Ingredients
4 pounds chicken pieces, skin on
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted, for garnish
white rice

Mole Poblano
Makes 9 cups.
9 mulato chiles*
7 pasilla chiles*
6 ancho chiles*
1 cup plus 9 tablespoons vegetable oil or lard plus additional as needed
4 or 5 tomatillos,** husked and cooked until soft
5 whole cloves
20 whole black peppercorns
1-inch piece of a Mexican cinnamon stick***
1 tablespoon seeds from the chiles, toasted
1/2 teaspoon anise seeds, toasted
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted
8 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
4 garlic cloves, roasted
3 tablespoons raisins
1/2 ripe plantain
20 whole almonds, blanched
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds****
2 corn tortillas, torn into pieces
3 stale French rolls, cut into 1-inch slices
6 to 7 cups reserved chicken broth as needed
1 1/2 ounces Mexican chocolate, chopped

*Mulato, pasilla, and ancho chiles are three varieties of dried chiles often used in Mexican cooking. The ancho chile (a poblano that has ripened to a dark red color and dried) is rust-colored, broad at the stem and narrowing to a triangular tip. The mulato, a relative to the poblano, is dark brown and triangular. The shiny black pasilla chile, a dried chilaca chile, is narrow and five to six inches long. Good quality chiles should be fragrant and pliable. Wipe them carefully with a damp cloth or a paper towel to remove any dust.
**Tomatillos are often referred to as "green tomatoes," but are members of the gooseberry family. To prepare tomatillos for the salsa, remove their papery husks and rinse away their sticky outer coating. Or, canned whole tomatillos are available under the San Marcos brand.
***Mexican cinnamon, known as canela, is the bark of the true cinnamon tree, native to Sri Lanka. It is sold in very thin and somewhat flaky curled sticks and is much softer than the more common variant of cinnamon, which comes from the bark of the cassia tree.
****Also known as pepitas, the pumpkin seeds used in Mexican cooking are hulled. When frying or toasting pumpkin seeds in a dry skillet, keep a cover handy, as they will pop like popcorn.

Preparation

In a large stock pot, parboil the chicken in water seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. Drain, reserving cooking broth, and refrigerate until ready to assemble the dish.

Prepare the Mole Poblano. Clean the chiles by removing stems, veins, and seeds; reserve 1 tablespoon of the seeds. Heat 1/2 cup of the oil in a heavy skillet until it shimmers. Fry the chiles until crisp, about 10 to 15 seconds, turning once; make sure they do not burn. Drain on paper towels. Put the chiles in a nonreactive bowl, cover with hot water, and set aside for 30 minutes. Drain the chiles, reserving the soaking water. Puree the chiles in a blender with enough of the soaking water to make a smooth paste. It may be necessary to scrape down the sides and blend several times to obtain a smooth paste. In a heavy Dutch oven heat an additional 1/2 cup oil over medium heat and add the chile puree (be careful — it will splatter). Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and set aside.

Puree the tomatillos in a blender. In a coffee or spice grinder, grind the cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, and toasted seeds. Add the seed mixture and the garlic to the pureed tomatillos and blend until smooth. Set aside.

Heat 6 tablespoons of the oil in a heavy frying pan. Fry each of the following ingredients and then remove with a slotted spoon: the raisins until they puff up; the ripe plantain until golden brown; the almonds to a golden brown; the pumpkin seeds until they pop. If necessary, add enough oil to make 4 tablespoons and fry the tortilla pieces and bread slices until golden brown, about 15 seconds per side; remove from the skillet with a slotted spoon. Add raisins, plantain, almonds, pumpkins seeds, tortillas, and bread to the tomatillo puree and blend, using 1 to 2 cups of the reserved chicken broth, as needed, to make a smooth sauce. This may have to be done in batches. In a heavy Dutch oven, heat 3 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Add the chile puree, the tomatillo puree, and the Mexican chocolate (be careful — it will splatter). Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring often. Add the remaining 5 cups of chicken broth, cook over low heat for an additional 45 minutes, stirring often enough to prevent the mixture from scorching on the bottom. During the last 15 minutes of cooking time, add the parboiled chicken and heat through. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and serve with white rice.