Mole de Caderas de Huajuapan

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart stockpot
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and roasting vegetables
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Deep clay bowls, barro rojo from Atzompa if you have them

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the goat broth

   Place the goat pieces in a heavy stockpot and cover with 8 to 10 cups of cold water. Add one quarter of the onion, 2 of the unpeeled garlic cloves, and the salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Never a rolling boil. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first fifteen minutes. Goat is lean and the bones give up their collagen slowly, so this broth needs patience. Simmer partially covered for an hour and a half to two hours, until the meat pulls away from the bone but has not fallen off entirely. You want it to hold together in the bowl.

   Goat caderas have more bone than meat. That is the point. The flat bones and the marrow they release give the broth its body and its richness. Do not substitute a boneless cut. The bone is the recipe.
2. 2

   Toast and soak the chiles

   While the goat simmers, heat a dry comal or cast iron skillet over medium. Toast the chile costeño amarillo and costeño rojo separately, pressing each flat against the comal with a spatula for about 20 to 30 seconds per side. Chile costeño is thin-fleshed and toasts fast. Watch for the skin to puff and the color to shift one shade darker. The kitchen should smell sharp and bright, not bitter or acrid. Pull them the moment they are fragrant. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Not boiling. Let them soften for 15 to 20 minutes while you roast the vegetables.

   Chile costeño burns faster than guajillo or ancho because it has almost no flesh. One second too long and the bitterness is permanent. Stay at the comal. This is not the step where you walk away to check your phone.
3. 3

   Roast the vegetables

   On the same hot comal, place the whole tomatoes, the remaining three quarters of the onion, and the remaining 4 garlic cloves still in their skins. Roast until the tomatoes blister and blacken in spots, the onion chars on the cut sides, and the garlic softens inside its papery skin. About 10 to 12 minutes, turning occasionally. The char is not decoration. It adds a smoky sweetness to the sauce that balances the sharp heat of the chile costeño. Peel the garlic when cool enough to handle.

4. 4

   Blend the chile sauce

   Drain the soaked chiles, discarding the soaking liquid. Add the drained chiles, roasted tomatoes, charred onion, peeled roasted garlic, and one cup of the goat broth to a blender. Blend until completely smooth. If the blender struggles, add another splash of broth, just enough to keep things moving. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing hard on the solids with the back of a spoon. Discard the skins. The result should be a deep reddish-orange puree, thinner than a mole negro but with more body than a simple caldo. That color is the chile costeño talking.

5. 5

   Fry the chile paste in lard

   In a heavy pot or wide cazuela, melt the lard over medium-high heat. When it shimmers, pour in the strained chile puree all at once. It will spit and pop, so stand back. Stir constantly for five to seven minutes. Watch the color deepen from bright orange to a darker, richer red as the water cooks out and the fat absorbs the chile. La manteca es el sabor. This step is the difference between a raw-tasting broth and a mole that has been properly cooked. You will smell it shift from sharp and acidic to round and warm. That is when it is ready.

6. 6

   Build the mole

   Pour the goat broth with the meat still in it into the pot with the fried chile paste. Stir to combine. Toast the dried avocado leaves briefly on the comal, about 10 seconds per side, until they release their anise-like perfume. Crumble them directly into the pot. Add the ejotes. The avocado leaf is what makes a Mixteca kitchen smell like a Mixteca kitchen. Dona Elvira told me she adds hers a few at a time so the perfume builds through the simmer. She was not wrong.

7. 7

   Thicken and finish

   Dissolve the fresh masa, or the masa harina mixture, in a ladle of warm broth, stirring until smooth with no lumps. Pour it into the pot and stir. This gives the broth the slight body that separates a mole de caderas from a thin caldo. Simmer everything together for 25 to 30 minutes over medium-low heat. The ejotes should be tender but not collapsed. The broth should coat the back of a wooden spoon with a light, silky film. Taste for salt. The goat and the chile should speak equally. If one is louder than the other, adjust.

8. 8

   Serve in deep bowls

   Ladle the stew into deep clay bowls, making sure each bowl gets one or two pieces of bone-in goat, a generous pour of the chile broth, and a share of the ejotes. Serve with warm hand-pressed corn tortillas and lime wedges. This is food you eat with your hands, pulling the meat off the bone, sopping the broth with torn tortilla, squeezing lime over the bowl until it cuts through the richness. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Goat caderas may require a special order from a carniceria that serves the Mexican or Caribbean community. Ask for bone-in goat from the hip or back, cut into serving pieces. If they only have legs, shoulder, or neck, those will work and the stew will still be honest, but the dish is named caderas for a reason: the flat bones and the marrow they release make the broth what it is.
• •Chile costeño is not easy to find outside Oaxaca. Mexican grocery stores in the US sometimes carry it, and online vendors like Guelaguetza in Los Angeles ship it nationwide. If you cannot find it, a mix of chile guajillo and chile de arbol, maybe eight guajillo and four arbol, gets you in the same territory: bright heat, thin flesh, clean flavor. But it is not the same. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
• •Dried avocado leaves (hojas de aguacate) are sold at Mexican markets and online. Make sure they are from the Mexican avocado (Persea drymifolia), not the Hass or Guatemalan varieties, which do not carry the same anise fragrance. Toast them before adding. They are not epazote. They are not hierba santa. They are not interchangeable with either. Each herb has its own job.
• •In Huajuapan, this dish is made in October with goat that has grazed all year on wild oregano, pitiona, and aromatic scrub. The flavor of that specific meat, seasoned from the inside by the land it walked, cannot be fully replicated with commercial goat. Make the dish anyway. It will still be good. But if you ever get the chance to eat it in the Mixteca during the matanza, go. No recipe replaces being there.

Advance Preparation

• •The goat broth can be made one day ahead and refrigerated with the meat in the broth. The fat will solidify on top. Leave it. Some of that fat belongs in the finished stew.
• •The chile paste can be blended, fried in lard, and refrigerated separately for up to one day. On serving day, combine with the broth, add the ejotes and avocado leaves, and finish the simmer.
• •Mole de caderas reheats well for two days. The avocado leaf perfume deepens overnight and the broth becomes more concentrated. Add a splash of water when reheating if the broth has thickened past where you want it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 450g)