Chef Lupita
Almendrado Oaxaqueño con Pollo
Oaxaca's eighth mole, the silky, almond-and-cinnamon almendrado, served over poached chicken. Mild, sweet, restrained, and a quiet rebuttal to anyone who thinks Mexican food has to be hot to be Mexican.
Culinary Explorer
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Pastel Azteca con Mole Negro y Quesillo
Created by
A Oaxacan cazuela layered with mole negro, shredded chicken, pasilla oaxaqueño rajas, and pulled quesillo, baked until the top melts into a deep golden crust and the mole soaks every tortilla through.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Make Ahead
Comfort Food
Special Occasion
45 min
Active Time
50 min cook•1 hr 35 min total
Yield8 servings
This is a Oaxacan dish. The pastel azteca exists in versions across Mexico, mostly with salsa verde and crema in the central states, but when you build it with mole negro, pasilla oaxaqueño, and quesillo, you are cooking from the Valles Centrales and the recipe answers to Oaxaca, not to anyone else.
The mole is the work. Either you make it from scratch over two days with chilhuacle negro, mulato, pasilla oaxaqueño, chocolate, plantain, burnt tortilla, and a list of spices that runs past thirty, or you buy a serious paste from a Oaxacan producer and rehydrate it properly with good broth. What you do not do is open a jar of something labeled mole at the supermarket and pretend it counts. A bad mole will make a bad pastel azteca and there is no rescuing it with cheese.
The pasilla oaxaqueño is the chile that decides whether you have made the Oaxacan version or just a casserole with mole on top. It is smoke-dried over wood in the Sierra Mixe and it carries a flavor that no other chile in Mexico can replace. The quesillo is the second decision. Real Oaxacan string cheese, pulled into long strands by hand, melts into ribbons that hold the layers together. Low-moisture mozzarella is a compromise, not an upgrade.
My mother did not cook Oaxacan food. She was from Jalisco. But I learned this dish from a senora in Tlacolula who fed me lunch one Sunday after market day, the cazuela still warm on her table, the mole around the edges blackened where it had touched the clay. She told me the trick was to let the tortillas drink the mole before the oven dried them out. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
The pastel azteca emerged in the mid-20th century as a domestic Mexican adaptation of layered casseroles, drawing on the older indigenous tradition of stacked tortilla dishes such as chilaquiles and budín de tortilla, both descended from pre-Columbian methods of using day-old tortillas with sauces and meat. The Oaxacan variant, built with mole negro and quesillo, reflects the state's two most defining ingredients: the seven moles codified in the 20th century as a regional identity marker, and the quesillo developed in Reyes Etla in the 1880s by Leobarda Castellanos García, who is credited with adapting Italian pasta filata cheese-making techniques after milk supply problems forced experimentation. The dish belongs to a Oaxacan home-cooking tradition rather than the formal seven-mole canon, but it preserves the same regional ingredients in a format meant for family tables, not banquet halls.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
prepared mole negro oaxaqueño
Quantity
3 cups
homemade or from a reputable Oaxacan paste rehydrated with broth
chicken broth
Quantity
2 cups, plus more as needed
bone-in chicken thighs and breasts
Quantity
3 pounds
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
halved
head of garlic
Quantity
1
halved crosswise
bay leaves
Quantity
2
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
day-old corn tortillas (6-inch)
Quantity
20 to 24
preferably hand-pressed from nixtamal masa
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
1/2 cup
for frying tortillas
dried chile pasilla oaxaqueño
Quantity
6
stemmed, seeded, and torn into wide strips
large white onion
Quantity
1
sliced into thin half-moons
quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese)
Quantity
12 ounces
pulled apart into thin strands
Mexican crema
Quantity
1/2 cup
toasted sesame seeds
Quantity
2 tablespoons
thinly sliced raw white onion (optional)
Quantity
1/2 cup
fresh epazote leaves (optional)
Quantity
for serving
pickled chiles en escabeche (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| prepared mole negro oaxaqueñohomemade or from a reputable Oaxacan paste rehydrated with broth | 3 cups |
| chicken broth | 2 cups, plus more as needed |
| bone-in chicken thighs and breasts | 3 pounds |
| white onionhalved | 1 medium |
| head of garlichalved crosswise | 1 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| day-old corn tortillas (6-inch)preferably hand-pressed from nixtamal masa | 20 to 24 |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard)for frying tortillas | 1/2 cup |
| dried chile pasilla oaxaqueñostemmed, seeded, and torn into wide strips | 6 |
| large white onionsliced into thin half-moons | 1 |
| quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese)pulled apart into thin strands | 12 ounces |
| Mexican crema | 1/2 cup |
| toasted sesame seeds | 2 tablespoons |
| thinly sliced raw white onion (optional) | 1/2 cup |
| fresh epazote leaves (optional) | for serving |
| pickled chiles en escabeche (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •9 by 13 inch baking dish or wide clay cazuela for the oven
- •Cast iron comal for toasting the pasilla oaxaqueño
- •Heavy pot for poaching the chicken
- •Large skillet for softening the tortillas in lard
- •Wide cazuela or pot for warming and loosening the mole
Instructions
- 1
Poach the chicken
Place the chicken in a large pot with the halved onion, halved garlic, bay leaves, and salt. Cover with cold water by an inch. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Cook at a lazy bubble for about 30 minutes, until the meat pulls easily from the bone. Lift the chicken out, let it rest until cool enough to handle, and shred it into long, generous pieces. Strain the broth and reserve. You will use it to loosen the mole.
Do not boil the chicken hard. A rolling boil toughens the breast meat and clouds the broth. Lazy bubbles. That is the rhythm. - 2
Loosen the mole
In a heavy cazuela or wide pot, warm the mole negro over medium-low heat. Stir in the reserved chicken broth a half cup at a time until the mole is the consistency of heavy cream: thick enough to coat a tortilla, loose enough to soak into the layers as the casserole bakes. Taste for salt. A good mole negro should taste of toasted chilhuacle, burnt tortilla, chocolate, and spice all at once. If it tastes flat, it needs salt. If it tastes raw, simmer another ten minutes.
- 3
Make the rajas of pasilla oaxaqueño
Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the torn pasilla oaxaqueño strips for about 15 seconds per side, just until the kitchen smells smoky and the chile turns pliable. This is the chile that defines the dish. The pasilla oaxaqueño is smoke-dried over wood in the Sierra Mixe and it is not interchangeable with the central Mexican pasilla. If your chile vendor does not know the difference, find a different vendor.
Do not soak the pasilla oaxaqueño. The smoke is the flavor. Soaking pulls it out into the water and you lose the reason you bought the chile in the first place. - 4
Cook the onion and finish the rajas
In a skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of the lard over medium heat. Add the sliced onion and a pinch of salt. Cook until the onion turns soft and the edges color, about 8 minutes. Add the toasted pasilla strips and cook for 2 minutes more, just to marry the flavors. Set aside.
- 5
Soften the tortillas
In a small skillet, heat the remaining lard over medium heat until it shimmers. Pass each tortilla through the hot lard for about 5 seconds per side. They should soften and turn pliable, never crisp. Stack them on a plate as you go. This is not frying. This is the step that lets the tortilla drink the mole without falling apart. Skip it and your pastel azteca will collapse into a puddle. La manteca es el sabor.
If your tortillas are very fresh and soft, you can skip the lard pass and dip them quickly in warm broth instead. Day-old tortillas need the fat to come back to life. - 6
Layer the pastel
Heat the oven to 375°F. Spread a thin ladle of mole across the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch baking dish or a wide clay cazuela. Lay down a single layer of softened tortillas, overlapping them so the bottom is fully covered. Spoon a generous layer of mole over the tortillas, then half the shredded chicken, then half the onion-and-pasilla mixture, then a third of the quesillo. Repeat: tortillas, mole, chicken, onion-pasilla, quesillo. Finish with a final layer of tortillas, the last of the mole spread evenly to the edges, and the remaining quesillo blanketing the top.
- 7
Bake until the cheese gratinés
Cover the dish loosely with foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the quesillo on top has melted into a deep golden crust with dark spots where the cheese caught the heat. The mole around the edges should bubble slowly and pull away from the sides of the dish. Let the pastel rest for 10 minutes before cutting. If you cut it the moment it comes out of the oven, the layers slide. Patience is part of the recipe. No me vengas con atajos.
- 8
Finish and serve
Drizzle the crema over the top in loose ribbons. Scatter the toasted sesame seeds and a few fresh epazote leaves across the surface. Serve squares straight from the cazuela onto warm plates, with raw white onion and pickled chiles en escabeche on the table. This is comida de cazuela: family-style, generous, eaten where it was cooked. Asi se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •If you cannot find pasilla oaxaqueño, do not substitute regular pasilla. They are different chiles. Order pasilla oaxaqueño online from a Oaxacan importer or wait until you can. A substitution here changes the dish entirely.
- •For the mole, your best options in order are: homemade from scratch over two days; a paste from a small Oaxacan producer rehydrated with good chicken broth and fresh chocolate; a paste from a reliable national brand. Anything beyond that and you should make a different dish until you can source properly. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.
- •Quesillo from Reyes Etla is the gold standard. If you have access to a Mexican market with fresh quesillo, buy it. Pull it apart by hand into long thin strands, the way they sell it in the mercados. Pre-shredded bagged cheese has anti-caking starch that will give you a chalky melt.
- •This dish improves between the moment you assemble it and the moment it goes into the oven. If you have time, build it in the morning, refrigerate covered, and bake in the evening. The tortillas absorb more mole and the layers settle.
Advance Preparation
- •The mole negro can and should be made up to 3 days ahead. The flavor only deepens as it sits. Refrigerate covered and reheat with a little broth to loosen.
- •The chicken can be poached and shredded one day ahead. Store the meat and the strained broth separately, both refrigerated.
- •The whole pastel can be assembled up to 24 hours before baking. Cover tightly and refrigerate. Bake straight from the refrigerator, adding 10 to 15 minutes to the covered baking time.
- •Leftovers reheat well in a 350°F oven, covered with foil, for about 20 minutes. The mole gets better the second day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 375g)
Calories
710 calories
Total Fat
43 g
Saturated Fat
17 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
24 g
Cholesterol
140 mg
Sodium
1190 mg
Total Carbohydrates
40 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
7 g
Protein
39 g
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