Mole Amarillo Oaxaqueño con Pollo

This is from Oaxaca. From the Valles Centrales and the sierra above them, where amarillo is the mole the cook reaches for on a Tuesday, when there is no time for the two-day commitment of a mole negro. Of the seven moles of Oaxaca, amarillo is the most misunderstood outside the state. People assume mole means thick, dark, sweet, and complicated. Amarillo is none of those things. It is brothy. It is herbaceous. It is built around a chile most cooks outside Oaxaca have never held in their hand.

The chile is chilhuacle amarillo. It grows in the Cañada region of Oaxaca and almost nowhere else, and it gives this mole its golden color and its quiet, fruity heat. The herb is hoja santa, the big heart-shaped leaf with a licorice and root-beer perfume that anchors the whole pot. Without hoja santa, you have a yellow chile sauce. With it, you have mole amarillo. The masa thickens the broth without weighing it down; this is not a paste, this is a sauce that drinks almost like a caldo.

I collected this version from a señora in Tlacolula who sold it from a clay pot at the Sunday market. She told me the rule that I now repeat to my students: the chilhuacle gives the color, the hoja santa gives the soul, the masa gives the body, and the chicken broth gives the life. Take any of them away and you are cooking something else. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and amarillo belongs to Oaxaca. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.