Mole Costeño Afromestizo

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy dry skillet
• •Flame-safe clay cazuela or heavy 4-quart pot
• •High-powered blender
• •Medium or fine-mesh strainer
• •Wooden spoon for frying the mole paste

Instructions

1. 1

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo first, about 15 seconds per side, just until the skin shines and the chile bends. Toast the chile costeño rojo separately, 5 to 8 seconds per side. It is smaller and thinner, and it burns before a lazy cook finishes turning around. Put the toasted chiles in a bowl, cover with hot water, and soak 20 minutes. Hot water, not boiling. Boiling water pulls bitterness from the skins.

   If a chile turns black, throw it out. Burned chile makes bitter mole and there is no good speech that fixes it later.
2. 2

   Roast the vegetables

   On the same comal, roast the tomatoes, tomatillos, onion rounds, and unpeeled garlic. Turn them until the tomatoes slump, the tomatillos turn olive-gold in patches, the onion chars at the edges, and the garlic skin is spotted. Pull the garlic off first if it softens before the tomatoes. Peel the garlic. The tomatillo sharpness keeps the sesame from making the sauce heavy.

3. 3

   Toast seeds and spices

   Wipe the comal clean. Toast the 1/2 cup sesame seeds, stirring constantly, until they turn pale gold and smell nutty. Set aside. Toast the peanuts until they pick up a little color. Toast the cloves, peppercorns, cumin seeds, and canela for 20 to 30 seconds, only until fragrant. Clove is powerful. Use three. Do not empty the spice jar because you want to feel dramatic.

4. 4

   Fry plantain and tortilla

   Melt 1 tablespoon of the lard in a small skillet over medium heat. Fry the plantain slices until golden on both sides, then fry the torn tortilla pieces until crisp and spotted. The plantain gives coastal roundness, not dessert sweetness. The tortilla gives the mole body so it coats the spoon instead of running like chile water.

5. 5

   Blend the base

   Drain the soaked chiles. In batches, blend the chiles, roasted tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, peeled garlic, toasted sesame, peanuts, spices, fried plantain, fried tortilla, oregano, salt, and 2 cups of the warm stock. Blend each batch longer than you think, until the sesame is completely smooth. No me vengas con atajos. A gritty mole is unfinished work.

6. 6

   Strain the paste

   Push the blended paste through a medium or fine-mesh strainer into a bowl, pressing hard with a spoon. Scrape the underside of the strainer. This is not decoration. It changes the sauce from rough chile paste into mole. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.

7. 7

   Fry the mole

   Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons lard in a wide clay cazuela or heavy pot over medium. Pour in the strained paste carefully. It will sputter. Stir with a wooden spoon for 12 to 15 minutes, scraping the bottom, until the color deepens from brick red to burnished brown and tiny specks of fat appear at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This frying is where the raw chile becomes sauce.

8. 8

   Simmer and adjust

   Stir in the remaining 2 cups warm stock, a little at a time, until the mole loosens into a thick sauce. Simmer 35 to 40 minutes, stirring often so the sesame does not catch on the bottom. Add more stock if it tightens too much. The finished mole should coat a spoon and fall back into the pot in slow sheets. Taste for salt after the simmer, not before.

9. 9

   Rest and serve

   Let the mole rest at least 30 minutes before serving, or refrigerate it overnight for better flavor. Spoon it into a rustic cazuela and scatter the reserved toasted sesame seeds over the top. Use it over poached chicken, turkey, pork, tamales de masa simple, or a pot of coastal beans. Serve with warm corn tortillas. Not flour tortillas. Those belong to the north, and this sauce is from Oaxaca's Costa Chica. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •Buy chile costeño rojo from Oaxacan or Guerrero vendors if you can. It should be pliable, brick-red, and smell of dried fruit and tobacco. If it breaks like a dead leaf, walk away. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
• •Do not replace chile costeño with more guajillo and pretend nothing changed. Guajillo gives color and body. Chile costeño gives the coastal bite and bitter-fruit edge. If you must compromise, use 3 guajillo plus 2 chile puya for every 4 chile costeño, then admit you made a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Do not add chocolate. This mole gets depth from toasted chile, ajonjolí, clove, plantain, tortilla, and frying the paste in manteca. Chocolate would drag it toward another region's logic.
• •Taste the sesame before you toast it. Ajonjolí goes rancid fast, especially in warm kitchens. If it tastes bitter before it hits the comal, it will ruin the whole pot.
• •This is costeño and Afromestizo food. Name that when you serve it. Community ownership matters, especially in a country that has spent too many years pretending its Black coast kitchens were invisible.

Advance Preparation

• •The finished mole can be made 3 days ahead and refrigerated. Reheat gently with splashes of chicken stock until it returns to a spoon-coating sauce.
• •The blended and strained paste can be refrigerated overnight before frying. Fry it in lard the next day, then simmer with stock.
• •Mole costeño freezes well for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat slowly, stirring from the bottom so the sesame does not scorch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 110g)