Traditional Mole Poblano
Prep Time: 3 hrs Cook Time: 8 hrs Servings: Yield 5-6 cups sauce
INGREDIENTS
Veggie Base:
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
3 small tomatoes
Spice Blend:
8 black peppercorns
1 stick cinnamon
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Peppers:
6 dried ancho peppers
3 dried pasilla peppers
2 cups hot water
Nut Mixture:
2 tablespoons almonds
1/4 cup peanuts
1/4 cup pecans
1/4 cup raisins
Other Ingredients:
5-6 cups chicken stock (recipe below)
1 plantain or unripe banana
4 corn tortillas
3 ounces Mexican Chocolate (Ibarra is good)
1/4 cup lard
Chicken Stock:
1 whole chicken
8-10 cups water
1 onion, quartered
2 stalks celery
2 carrots, chopped
10 black peppercorns
2 dried ancho peppers
DIRECTIONS
Making Stock
The base of mole sauce is actually chicken stock. I wouldn’t recommend using store-bought stock for this, but I guess you could. Since I was making chicken enchiladas to serve with my sauce, it was easy to just cook the chicken while making the stock.
I just tossed all the stock ingredients above in a large pot and let it simmer for around three hours.
The finished stock was a dark color and had a great flavor.
Roast the dried Peppers on a baking sheet for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees so they are fragrant. Then add them to a bowl with about 2 cups of boiling water so the peppers reconstitute.
They will need to sit for about 30 minutes in the water.
Once the peppers are reconstituted, remove the stems from the peppers and slice them open. Scrape out all the seeds and add the peppers and steeping liquid to a blender. Blend them until they are smooth and set the pepper paste aside for later.
The Spices:
There are some great spices in this recipe and all of them really come through in the final sauce. The key is to toast the spices well in a dry pan over medium heat for a few minutes until they are fragrant and lightly browned. This will really bring out their flavors.
Then just give them a whirl in a spice grinder and you’re all set in the spices department.
Just set this spice mixture aside for later.
The Vegetable Base
Besides the chicken stock, a lot of the body in the sauce comes from a few simple vegetables that are roasted and then blended down.
Just roughly chop all the veggies and add them to a baking sheet. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Again, once the veggies are roasted, add them to your blender along with 1.5 cups of the chicken stock and blend until they are smooth.
Then strain the veggie mixture to remove any seeds.
Add the veggie base to a large pot where you can start building your mole sauce.
The Nuts:
This recipe has a few different kinds of nuts in them. I think the almonds and peanuts are pretty important but I think you could also use walnuts instead of pecans or just leave them out.
Anyway, cook the nuts over medium heat for a few minutes in LARD.
Once your nuts are lightly browned, add your raisins to the pan also and cook them until they are soft. The raisins will only take about a minute to cook while the nuts will need 5-6 minutes so don’t add them at the same time.
As you might guess, once the nuts are done, add them and the raisins to the blender along with 1 cup of chicken stock. Blend it up!
Add the blended nuts to your master sauce pot where your veggie base is. You can also add the blended pepper paste to the pot and the spice mixture as well.
Final Ingredients
There are a few finishing ingredients that go in the sauce now.
Traditionally, a plantain is cooked in the leftover lard from the nuts and added to the sauce.
Also, cook a few corn tortillas in the lard as well.
When the plantain and tortillas are lightly browned from the lard, add them to a blender with 1-2 cups of chicken stock and blend them up. Then into the sauce pot they go!
Finally, there is the most famed ingredient of the mole sauce: CHOCOLATE.
Not just any chocolate, but Mexican chocolate.
This chocolate is very different than what you might think of as chocolate. It’s really hard and very sweet. I’m not sure if I would recommend substituting it with normal chocolate.
You should be able to find this stuff at any Mexican market anywhere though.
The Long Simmer
You now should have a big pot of simmering sauce with all of your ingredients in. It will be pretty thick though so add 2-3 cups of chicken stock to it to thin it out a bit and then bring it to a simmer.
I recommend tasting the sauce now although it won’t be very good at this point. It’s just fun to see how the flavors change as it simmers.
Simmer over low heat for 90-120 minutes. You need to stir it pretty consistently or it will stick and burn to the bottom of the pan. If it ever gets really thick, add more stock.
When the sauce is done simmering, season it well with salt.
