Michoacán-Style Mole de Olla

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart stockpot or wide clay cazuela
• •Cast iron comal for toasting chiles and roasting jitomate
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Deep ladle for serving into clay bowls

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the broth

   Put the beef shank, short ribs or neck bones, cold water, half onion, 4 peeled garlic cloves, bay leaves, and salt in a heavy 8-quart pot. Bring it up slowly over medium heat. Skim the gray foam during the first 20 minutes. Cold water pulls flavor from the bones. A hard boil makes the broth muddy and the meat tight.

2. 2

   Simmer the beef

   Lower the heat until the broth moves gently, with small bubbles breaking at the edge. Cover partially and cook for 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours, until the beef is tender but still holds to the bone. Add hot water if the liquid drops below the meat. Res con hueso is the base. Without the bones, the pot has no authority.

   Chambarete gives broth, meat, and collagen in one cut. If your butcher only has boneless stew meat, ask again. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado.
3. 3

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chile guajillo for about 20 to 30 seconds per side, just until the skin darkens slightly and turns fragrant. Toast the chile pasilla negro separately and watch it closely. Pasilla is thin and burns fast. If a chile blackens, throw it out. Burned chile turns the whole pot bitter.

4. 4

   Soften the chiles

   Put the toasted chiles in a bowl and cover them with hot water, not boiling water. Let them soften for 20 minutes. Boiling water cooks the skins and pulls bitterness into the paste. Hot water softens the flesh and keeps the chile flavor clean. This is the difference between a broth that tastes like chile and one that tastes like punishment.

5. 5

   Roast the jitomate

   While the chiles soak, roast the jitomates, quarter onion, and 2 unpeeled garlic cloves on the same comal. Turn them until the tomato skins blister, the onion gets dark spots, and the garlic softens inside its skin. Peel the garlic. The comal gives the broth a cooked sweetness that raw tomato cannot give.

6. 6

   Blend the chile paste

   Drain the chiles and put them in a blender with the roasted jitomates, roasted onion, peeled roasted garlic, and 1 cup of the beef broth. Blend until completely smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing hard on the solids. Do not skip the strainer. Chile skins floating in a caldo are laziness you can see.

7. 7

   Fry the paste

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a deep skillet or cazuela over medium heat. Add the strained chile paste. It will sputter, so stir with confidence. Cook for 7 to 9 minutes, until the color darkens to brick red and a thin edge of red fat appears around the paste. La manteca es el sabor. Frying the paste wakes the chile and gives the broth body.

8. 8

   Join pot and sauce

   Remove the cooked onion, garlic cloves, and bay leaves from the beef pot. Stir the fried chile paste into the broth. Add the xoconostle wedges, elote rounds, and chayote. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. The xoconostle should soften and sour the broth without falling apart. The corn should taste like the field, not like sugar.

9. 9

   Finish the vegetables

   Add the ejotes, calabacitas, epazote, and rubbed Mexican oregano. Simmer 10 to 12 minutes, until the green beans are tender and the calabacitas still have shape. Taste for salt now. The vegetables drink the broth, so the seasoning must be firm. Remove the epazote sprig once it has done its work.

10. 10

    Rest and serve

    Let the pot rest off the heat for 10 minutes so the chile fat settles in red circles across the surface. Ladle meat, bone, vegetables, xoconostle, and broth into deep clay bowls. Serve with lime halves, diced white onion, and warm hand-pressed corn tortillas. Recetas probadas y garantizadas. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Buy chile guajillo that is flexible and brick red, not brittle and dusty. Buy chile pasilla negro that smells like dried fruit and tobacco. If the chiles smell like cardboard, the caldo will taste like cardboard.
• •Xoconostle is the sour prickly pear, not the sweet tuna. It gives this broth its sharp edge. If you cannot find it, use a small spoon of good apple cider vinegar at the end, but understand what happened: you made a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Do not add all the vegetables at once. The cocineras tradicionales of Michoacán know the clock of the pot. Elote and chayote go first. Ejote and calabacita go later. Epazote goes near the end. That order is the technique.
• •This is not churipo. If you are making churipo, you serve corundas with it, never alone. Mole de olla can sit with tortillas, because it belongs to a different table.
• •A pressure cooker can make the beef tender in about 45 minutes under pressure, but build the chile paste properly and add the vegetables after releasing pressure. No me vengas con atajos that destroy the vegetables.

Advance Preparation

• •The beef broth can be made one day ahead. Chill it, lift off any heavy cap of fat if you want, then return a little of that fat to the pot because flavor lives there.
• •The chile paste can be toasted, blended, strained, and fried one day ahead. Refrigerate it separately and stir it into the hot broth when you finish the stew.
• •Add the vegetables the day you serve. Reheated mole de olla tastes good, but calabacita and ejote lose their shape if you cook them twice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 620g)