Querétaro Otomí Rabbit Mole (Mole de Conejo Otomí)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Dry comal for toasting chiles, seeds, tortillas, and aromatics
• •Wide clay cazuela or heavy 5-quart Dutch oven
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer, optional for a smoother mole
• •Wooden spoon for frying the sauce

Instructions

1. 1

   Season the rabbit

   Pat the rabbit dry and season it all over with the salt and black pepper. Let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes while you prepare the chiles. Rabbit is lean, so do not treat it like pork shoulder. It needs browning, sauce, and patience, not a violent boil.

2. 2

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo chiles about 20 to 30 seconds per side, just until the skins shine and puff. Toast the pasilla more carefully because it burns faster. Put the toasted chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water for 20 minutes. Hot water, not boiling. Boiling water pulls bitterness from the skins.

   Chile guajillo gives this mole its brick-red color and clean fruit. Pasilla gives it shadow. If the chiles smell dusty instead of fruity, buy from another vendor. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado.
3. 3

   Char the aromatics

   On the same comal, char the onion halves, unpeeled garlic, tomato, and xoconostle pieces until they pick up dark spots and soften at the edges. Peel the garlic. The xoconostle is not decoration. It gives the semi-desert acidity that cuts through the pepita and almond.

4. 4

   Toast the seeds

   Toast the pepitas on the dry comal until they puff and begin to snap. Move them constantly. Toast the almonds until lightly golden. Toast the tortilla pieces until dry and spotted. This is how the mole gets body without flour. The Bajío has its own register with pepita, xoconostle, and chilcuague. Not every mole is Oaxacan or Poblano.

5. 5

   Blend the mole

   Drain the chiles and transfer them to a blender with the charred onion, peeled garlic, tomato, xoconostle, pepitas, almonds, tortilla pieces, oregano, cumin, clove, canela, chilcuague, piloncillo, and 2 cups of hot broth. Blend until completely smooth. Take your time. A grainy mole is a lazy mole. If the blender struggles, add more broth by the spoonful.

6. 6

   Brown the rabbit

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a wide clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the rabbit pieces in batches until golden on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Do not crowd the pot. La manteca es el sabor, and here it protects the lean meat while giving the sauce a proper base.

7. 7

   Fry the sauce

   Lower the heat to medium. Pour the blended mole into the hot fat left in the cazuela. It will sputter, so stand back and stir with authority. Cook 10 to 12 minutes, scraping the bottom, until the sauce darkens from red-orange to deep brick and the fat begins to show at the edges. This frying is not a shortcut step. It is the step.

8. 8

   Braise slowly

   Return the rabbit to the cazuela and add enough hot broth to loosen the mole into a thick stew. Bring it to the gentlest simmer, cover partially, and cook 55 to 70 minutes, turning the pieces once, until the rabbit is tender but not falling into strings. Add the cooked cacahuazintle during the last 15 minutes if using. Taste for salt. The sauce should be nutty, lightly acidic, red from guajillo, and gently tingling from the chilcuague.

9. 9

   Rest and serve

   Let the mole rest off the heat for 15 minutes before serving. Spoon the sauce over the rabbit in the cazuela and carry it to the table with warm corn tortillas, lime halves, and a little queso ranchero on the side. Serve it family-style. The comales de Tolimán, the cazuela, the tortillas in the chiquihuite, that is part of the dish. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Buy rabbit from a butcher who sells whole animals and ask for it cut through the bone into serving pieces. Frozen rabbit works if it was handled well. Do not use boneless pieces. Bones give the sauce flavor.
• •Chilcuague is also sold as raíz de chilcuague or raíz de oro in parts of Querétaro and Guanajuato. Use a small amount. It should make the tongue tingle lightly, not numb the whole mouth.
• •If xoconostles are out of season, wait or use tomatillo as a compromise. It will give acidity, but it will not give the dry, magenta, cactus-fruit sharpness of xoconostle. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Cacahuazintle belongs on this table because maize belongs on this table. If you cannot find kernels, serve thick hand-pressed corn tortillas. Do not bring flour tortillas to this dish.
• •The cooks of León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Aguascalientes know the Bajío is not one flat cuisine. Crema from the hacienda lechera belongs in crema de flor de calabaza, queso ranchero crowns sopa de tortilla, and this mole belongs to the Otomí semi-desert. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Advance Preparation

• •The mole base can be blended and refrigerated one day ahead. Fry it in manteca only on the day you cook the rabbit, because that frying gives the sauce its finished flavor.
• •The rabbit can be seasoned up to 12 hours ahead and held covered in the refrigerator. Bring it toward room temperature for 30 minutes before browning.
• •The finished mole tastes deeper the next day. Reheat gently with a splash of broth so the lean rabbit does not tighten.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 430g)