Pasta de Mole Xiqueño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy cast iron comal for toasting chiles
• •Wide clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven
• •Wooden pala or sturdy wooden spoon
• •High-powered blender
• •Medium or fine-mesh strainer
• •Molcajete or spice grinder

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the chiles

   Open the chile ancho, chile mulato, and chile pasilla with kitchen scissors. Remove stems, seeds, and veins. Wipe the skins with a barely damp cloth. Do not rinse them under water. You paid for flavor, not laundry.

2. 2

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chiles one at a time, pressing each flat for a few seconds per side until the skin softens, darkens slightly, and smells deep and fruity. The ancho will smell like raisins. The mulato will smell darker, almost like tobacco and dried fruit. Do not blacken them. Burned chile turns mole bitter and nobody at the table will forget it.

   Keep separate piles as you toast. Pasilla is thinner and burns faster than ancho and mulato. Watch it like a señora is watching you from the doorway.
3. 3

   Soak the chiles

   Place the toasted chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water for 20 minutes. Hot, not boiling. Boiling water roughens the skins and pulls out bitterness. Drain the chiles and save 1 cup of the soaking liquid only if it tastes clean. If it tastes bitter, throw it out and use broth.

4. 4

   Toast seeds and nuts

   On the same comal, toast the sesame seeds until pale gold and fragrant. Transfer them to a bowl. Toast the peanuts, almonds, and pecans or walnuts separately until they smell warm and nutty. Separate toasting matters because sesame burns before almonds even wake up. This is how you build flavor without wrecking it.

5. 5

   Fry the sweet base

   Melt 1/3 cup manteca de cerdo in a wide cazuela or heavy skillet over medium heat. Fry the plantain slices until deeply golden on both sides. Remove them. In the same fat, fry the tortilla pieces and bolillo until browned, then fry the raisins just until they puff. Pull them out quickly. Raisins go from plump to scorched in seconds.

6. 6

   Cook aromatics

   Add the onion and garlic to the cazuela and cook until the onion softens and takes color at the edges. Add the tomato halves cut side down and cook until the skins wrinkle and the flesh slumps. You are not making tomato sauce. The tomato is there for roundness and acidity, not for color.

7. 7

   Toast the spices

   Toast the canela, cloves, black peppercorns, allspice, and anise seed on the comal for 30 to 45 seconds, just until fragrant. Grind them with the Mexican oregano, thyme, marjoram, and salt in a spice grinder or molcajete. The spice should smell warm and direct, not dusty.

8. 8

   Blend in batches

   Blend the soaked chiles with enough warm chicken broth to move the blades. Pour into a large bowl. Blend the nuts, sesame, plantain, tortilla, bread, raisins, onion, garlic, tomato, ground spices, chocolate, and piloncillo in batches, adding broth only as needed. Blend longer than you think. Mole paste should be smooth enough to coat a spoon, not gritty like beach sand.

9. 9

   Strain the puree

   Pass the blended mixtures through a medium or fine-mesh strainer into one bowl, pressing hard with a spoon. This is work. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo. The strainer catches chile skins and stubborn nut pieces that would make the finished paste rough.

10. 10

    Fry the paste

    Melt the remaining 2/3 cup manteca de cerdo in a deep, heavy cazuela over medium heat. Add the strained mole puree carefully. It will sputter. Stir with a wooden paddle or strong spoon, scraping the bottom constantly, until the paste darkens, thickens, and the fat begins to shine at the edges. This takes 45 to 60 minutes. If you stop too early, the mole tastes raw.

11. 11

    Cook to paste

    Lower the heat and keep stirring until the mole becomes a thick, glossy paste that pulls away from the bottom of the cazuela for a second before settling back. Taste for salt. It should be sweet, dark, and chile-forward, with the spice behind it. Mole is not chocolate sauce. The chocolate supports the chiles. Así se hace y punto.

12. 12

    Store or serve

    To store, cool the paste completely and pack it into clean jars with a thin layer of melted lard over the top. Refrigerate up to 2 weeks or freeze up to 3 months. To serve, thin 1 cup paste with 2 to 3 cups warm chicken broth in a cazuela, simmer 20 minutes, and spoon over cooked chicken, turkey, pork, or enchiladas. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds at the table.

Chef Tips

• •Ask for chile mulato that is dark brown, flexible, and still a little leathery. If it cracks like old paper, it has been sitting too long. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
• •Mole xiqueño should be sweet, but it still belongs to the chiles. If all you taste is chocolate and sugar, you made dessert. Balance it with salt, broth, and more properly toasted chile paste next time.
• •Use manteca de cerdo. Vegetable oil can fry the paste, yes, but it will not give the same body or shine. La manteca es el sabor.
• •If piloncillo is hard to find, dark brown sugar is the compromise. Say the word compromise out loud so you remember you changed the dish.
• •This paste improves after a night in the refrigerator. The chile, fruit, nuts, and spices settle into each other. Veracruz cooks make mole ahead because they know time is an ingredient.

Advance Preparation

• •The chiles, nuts, sesame, spices, tortilla, bread, and plantain can be toasted and fried one day ahead. Keep them covered at room temperature.
• •The finished paste can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks with a thin cap of melted lard over the surface.
• •For holiday cooking, make the paste up to 3 months ahead and freeze it in 1-cup portions. Thaw overnight, then thin with warm chicken broth and simmer until glossy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 210g)