Tacos de Mole Verde con Pollo

This is Oaxacan mole verde. One of the seven moles. Not the most famous, that would be negro, but the one that shows up on weekday tables across the Valles Centrales when a cook wants something green, bright, and substantial without committing to a two-day project.

The color comes from tomatillos, hoja santa, epazote, and flat-leaf parsley, all blended with toasted pepitas that give the sauce its body. The pepitas are the backbone. Without them you have salsa verde. With them, thickened by a handful of fresh masa dissolved into the pot, you have mole verde. That distinction matters. The masa clouds the sauce just enough to coat a spoon and cling to the chicken. Skip it and the mole runs off the meat like water.

Hoja santa is the herb that makes this version Oaxacan. It grows wild in the lowlands and has an anise-like flavor that no other herb replicates. I've watched senoras in the Mercado de Abastos in Oaxaca City tear the big velvet leaves right off the stem and drop them into the blender without measuring. They know the proportion by feel. If you can't find hoja santa, you can approximate with a mix of fresh tarragon and basil, but I'll tell you now: it's a compromise. Not the same dish.

My mother didn't make Oaxacan moles. She was jalisciense. But she had a page in her notebook from a trip she took to Oaxaca in 1982, a mole verde recipe dictated by a woman at a market stall who sold tamales de verde out of a basket. The handwriting is almost illegible. The recipe works. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.