MOLE - 194

If it's Christmas time, it's time for MOLE.

This past weekend Javier and I spent time with my cousins in Portland, Oregon. They had asked me quite some time ago if I would prepare MOLE for them and some guests. I was delighted as this is something I enjoy doing for others. I have taught approximately 8-9 MOLE classes in my home, in the homes of others, and in the Spanish classes I teach at the college. It's a complicated recipe (as you may have heard), but only complicated by the number of ingredients and the four different processes you put into play to come up with the finished product.

Process number one is simmering. If you're fixing chicken or turkey MOLE, then it's necessary to simmer your poultry parts in one of the essential ingredients of the mole - the stock. I make my stock with chicken, garlic, marjoram, thyme, onion and salt. While that's simmering, I also simmer in a much smaller pan a stick of cinnamon, raisins, and a tomato. And, while we're simmering things, let's not forget the main ingredient - the chiles. I used four different kinds this time - chile pasilla, chile negro, chile guajillo, y chile California. Since you buy them dried, it is necessary to re-hydrate them by simmering gently for a few moments before leaving them to finish the softening process in their own reddish-colored liquid.

Process number two is toasting. I toast the following ingredients in a hot skillet: sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, peppercorns, whole cloves, cumin seeds, and a few of the seeds that will come out of the re-hydrated chiles.

Process number three is blending. Once the chiles are seeded and have had most of their veins removed, they go into the blended with a stale corn tortilla, a small piece of Mexican chocolate, the toasted seeds and nuts, the simmered raisins, cinnamon stick and tomato, and some of the chicken stock, which has been strained. I also include a small chunk of the onion which has simmered with the chicken. It is necessary at this point to blend, blend, blend until you come up with a smooth paste. Sometimes this requires adding more stock.

I guess there are several more processes such as returning the MOLE sauce to a slow simmer, adding the chicken pieces, adjusting seasonings, etc etc etc, but the three mentioned above are the most essential. The important thing to remember about mole is that it never turns out the same twice. I suppose this has to do with your chiles, what seasonings you have on hand, how much you use, how good your stock is, and an exponential number of other factors that go into the MOLE equation.

This particular MOLE was very good. Every time I make it, it turns out differently. Sometimes it's flat, and other times it's too spicy or acidic. This one was spicy but smooth. I only wish I had better pictures!

Here is the history of mole :

For those who are interested, here is the history of Mole Poblano. There are two versions to this story:

The first says that 16th Century nuns from the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla de los Angeles, upon learning that the Archbishop was coming for a visit, went into a panic because they had nothing to serve him.

The nuns started praying desperately, then began chopping and grinding and roasting, mixing different types of chiles together with spices, day-old bread, nuts, a little chocolate and approximately 20 other ingredients.

This concoction boiled for hours and was reduced to the thick, sweet, rich and fragrant mole sauce we know today.

To serve in the mole, they killed the only meat they had, an old turkey, and the strange sauce was poured over it.

The archbishop was more than happy with his banquet and the nuns saved face.
(In a variation of this story, it is told that other nuns in another convent heard of their concoction, and of how pleased the archbishop was, so they began preparing their own versions of mole with other exotic ingredients for his visits to their convents)

A different legend states that mole came from pre-Hispanic times and that Aztec king, Moctezuma, thinking the conquistadors were gods, served mole to Cortez at a banquet.

This story probably gained some credibility because the word mole comes from the Nahuatl word “milli” which means sauce or “concoction”.
Another connection could be that chocolate was widely used in pre-Columbian Mexico, so people have naturally jumped to that conclusion.

What do the real experts say? “The idea of using chocolate as a flavoring in cooked food would have been horrifying to the Aztecs—just as Christians could not conceive of using communion wine to make, say, coq au vin.

In all the pages of Sahagún that deal with Aztec cuisine and with chocolate, there is not a hint that it ever entered into an Aztec dish. Yet today many food writers and gourmets consider one particular dish, the famous pavo in mole poblano, which contains chocolate, to represent the pinnacle of the Mexican cooking tradition. …the place of origin of the dish and its sauce, the Colonial Puebla de los Angeles; this beautiful city, unlike others in central Mexico, has no Aztec foundations – and neither does the dish, regardless of what food writers may say.”

Taken from The True History of Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe [Thames and Hudson: London] 1996 (p. 216-7).