parisbaconpesto: Here it is, the least accurate, most ambiguous molé recipe of all time.

Molé is to Mexico sort of like barbeque is to America: most states have their own recipe and each recipe has fierce fans. Molé is Mexican food, to be sure, but its roots are pre-Columbian, and so lacks nacho cheese and sour cream. As it has national food status, it also has proponents who insist on meticulous methods of preparation. Those methods are interesting and would probably be fun to follow if you had a spare day: yeah, it’s pretty labor intensive. I’ve cooked mole several times and keep cutting steps out of the process; the taste to me is the same and the result is hours saved. Like most things in life, for 5 percent of the effort you get 95 percent of the results; it’s that last little bit on the road to prefect that takes so freaking long.

Molé is a sauce, and molé de Oaxaqueño, from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, is probably the most famous in America because it includes chocolate. No, you won’t taste the chocolate, but it’s fun to tell people it’s in there. We sort of had a chocolate-themed lunch at work last week, and I made the Oaxaqueño mole, and did the cooking in about two hours this time. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

10 dried, halved, de-seeded and de-stemmed red chilies (the proper recipe calls for a mix of pasilla, ancho, and others, but I’d recommend whatever you have or whatever is cheapest – believe me, you won’t taste any difference by the time we are done)
1 onion, diced
1 head of garlic, peeled
A handful of almonds, a handful of pecans, and a half-handful of sunflower seeds
5 tomatillos, peeled, washed and quartered
1 piece of white bread or a flour tortilla
a few ounces of dark (eating or baking) chocolate, or dark cocoa powder
a few peppercorns
a teaspoon or so of cumin and cinnamon
a handful of raisins
3-4 cups of chicken broth

Making it:

1. If you have a four-burner stove, put a thick pot or pan on each burner and turn the burners to medium. If you have a six-stove, do the same with all six. Perform the following roasting, sauteeings, and whatnots in the pots and pans, rotating as different ingredients finish.

2. Sauté the onion in a bit of oil along with the bread or tortilla cut into pieces. Remove that stuff and then sauté the raisins until they puff up -- just a few minutes.

3. Dry roast the chilies until they darken (open the window – that smoke can get thick). Then, boil them in water for a few minutes.

4. Roast the nuts until they darken. Roast the garlic until it darkens. Roast the peppercorns. Roast the tomatillos. Roast anything else I forgot to mention. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES put a banana in this sauce. Some recipes call for a banana, and I did it once, and it was awful. Peanut butter, on the other hand, could be OK.

5. Put each of the ingredients in a big food processor, probably starting with the onions and bread, then moving on to the nuts, and then whatever is left over. Puree all the stuff and add chicken broth to keep things going. The color should be close to black and the consistency should be, well, saucy.

6. I think traditionally this mole is served with turkey (and over rice), but I prefer chicken. Whatever you do, sauté the meat and then add the sauce and let it stew for a while -- maybe 20-30 minutes.

Molé looks like diarrhea when you take a picture of it, so here’s a photo of a baby at a ski lodge instead: