My First Attempt at Homemade Mole

 

So! Mole! What was my inspiration this time? I knew that I really wanted to make some kind of authentic Mexican recipe. One that involves a lot of creativity, some complexity and a great deal of love. I did a lot of research looking at different recipes, until I stumbled across the beloved Mole dishes. Once I saw how much work and care is put into this dish, I knew right away that this would be the meal to recreate in my house.

Okay! Next! I know what I want to make, but now where do I get my inspiration for the ingredients? One of my go-to's for trying to find authentic recipes right from the heart of a traditional cook or village is by looking to the videos of the food blogger Mark Wiens for aid. I typed in “Mark Wiens mole” and found the most incredible story of how he achieved his goal of eating mole. However, when I saw how much work goes into mole and how many different ingredients are used, I decided I should try to find one other video that will give me mixed options for what I can use for my own choice of ingredients while still keeping it authentic. Therefore, after googling a couple different keywords I discovered a mole recipe on the Youtube channel “De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina.” This channel is run by this beautiful woman who has blessed the internet with her traditional Mexican recipes. The first thing I thought to myself when I started watching her videos, was that I can’t wait to try out all of her masterpieces.

By carefully studying both videos I managed to compile the list of ingredients and techniques I wanted to use for making this dish.  Of course there are many true Mexican ingredients I would love to actually use in my recipe but I did not have access to all of them, so I sadly had to make do with what I could find.

Ingredient List:

• ·         2 to 3 Litres of chicken broth
• ·         Boiled chicken
• ·         2 cloves of garlic
• ·         4 yellow onions
• ·         7 tomatillos (green tomatoes)
• ·         2 to 3 red tomatoes
• ·         1 plantain
• ·         3 sticks of cinnamon
• ·         10 to 15 dried cloves
• ·         Small slice of ginger
• ·         20-25 dried all spice berries
• ·         1 -2 tbsp of black pepper
• ·         2 bags of dried guajillo chili peppers
• ·         2 bags of dried poblano chili peppers
• ·         Seeds from the dried chili peppers
• ·         5 arrowroot cookies
• ·         1 cup raisins
• ·         1 and ¼ cup almonds
• ·         1/5 of a loaf of fresh bread
• ·         ½ cup of pumpkin seeds
• ·         Lard
• ·         ½ cup sesame seeds plus extra to use as topping
• ·         1 disc of Mexican chocolate

 

Cooking Method

I want to apologize ahead of time for the lack of photos for this post. I was so busy trying to carefully execute each task that I fully admit I forgot to take photos of every technique I performed.

First things first, I made my homemade chicken broth. I took 5 chicken thighs (you can choose whatever cut of chicken you prefer) and threw them into 3.5 L of boiled water with a good pinch of salt, one chopped onion and half a clove of peeled and sliced garlic. I did this the night before I made the mole sauce that way I did not have to wait for the broth to simmer before adding it to the other ingredients. Since I let the broth simmer and build flavours over the span of 2 hours, a lot of the liquid evaporated and left me with roughly 2.5 Litres of broth. I was hoping to have more but it was still very rich, fatty, savory and flavourful. Perfect for the mole! I set aside the boiled chicken thighs to later strip the meat off of the bone.

Next, heat up your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I truly do wish I had the facilities to cook over a fire like the women in the videos are able to do, but alas I cannot. So once my oven was heated I placed my peeled onions, tomatoes (green and red) and one whole unpeeled clove of garlic on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil and roasted them in the oven for 20 minutes. This gave the garlic an incredible sweet aroma once it came out of the oven. This also brought out the natural sugars of the onions and softened the tomatoes, given everything that slightly golden appearance. This was a clear sign that these ingredients will attribute delicious, roasted flavours to the dish.

While the onions, garlic and tomatoes were roasting I prepared the dried chili peppers. I deseeded each chili pepper by cutting a small slit at the top, then pulled it open with my hands to take out the seeds. Alas I did not realize how time consuming this could be so my loving husband came to the rescue to help. We put all of the deseeded chilies into one bowl and all of the seeds into another bowl to save for later. Then, I whipped out my cast iron skillet, put it on the stove top at medium heat and lightly roasted the dried chilies for about 10 seconds each side. Once roasted, I placed them in a large bowl and filled the bowl with my homemade chicken broth, until they were almost fully submerged. This way the chilies soften and absorb some of that rich chicken flavour.

 Afterwards, I melted about a cup of lard in a deep pot. As I was doing my research, I saw that so many Mexican recipes incorporate lard into their creations. For that reason, I wanted to fry my ingredients in lard just as the wonderful lady in “De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina” had done in her video. Once the lard was melted and bubbling, the first ingredient I fried was the almonds. They fried for about 10 minutes, allowing their nutty aromas to fill the kitchen. When the almonds were done frying, I removed them all from the hot oil before adding the next ingredient. NOTE: I tried to fry almost every individual ingredient on their own since most ingredients require different cooking times. Next, I did the same with the pumpkin seeds. 

After the nuts are fried make sure to put them into their own container because they will be blended up later, separate from the other ingredients. The container I used was my Ninja blender container since I planned to use it for the blending process later.

Next, I fried the chopped plantains and the cinnamon sticks together.

 These ingredients I did fry at the same time so that they could combine their flavours into one beautiful taste. Cinnamon and plantains compliment one another so wonderfully and the scent that filled my kitchen after these ingredients were fried was amazing. A smell that would awaken your senses, make your mouth water as you picture the sweet, warm taste on your tongue. I made sure to flip these ingredients periodically as they were cooking. I fried them for about a total of 6 to 7 minutes as well, while keeping a careful eye on them to ensure they did not burn. Once they were complete, I added the plantains to the bowl with the soaking chilies and added the cinnamon sticks to the container with the fried nuts. Basically, all of the spices, seeds and nuts will be blended together before combining them with the other cooked ingredients.

Following the plantains and cinnamon, I then fried the arrowroot biscuit cookies. I made sure to let them soak in the lard so they would later crisp up as they finish frying. They cooked for about 5 to 6 minutes before being added to the bowl of the chillies and plantains.

Next, I fried the bread. However, I did slice the bread into a couple pieces before frying so that it would cook quicker and easier. It was amazing watching the bread soak in the lard and crisp up all around the edges to create a crunchy texture. This also was added to the large bowl to soak in with the chicken broth and other ingredients. Earlier, I had added the oven roasted tomatoes, garlic and onions to the broth bowl.

Then I fried all of the other spices together. This way the cloves, all spice and ginger would all work together to create one intense flavour. The black pepper I did not fry since it was already ground so I threw it into the chicken broth bowl right away. I fried the warm spices for approximately 4 minutes to ensure they did not overcook but were still able to enhance their characteristics. All of these fried ingredients would go into the container with the nuts to be ground up in the blender.

Following the spices, I threw the raisins into the hot lard. Now I purposefully fried the raisins after the warm spices because I knew the oil would be filled with the sweet, warm flavours. Therefore, those essences would then soak into the raisins. And it was quite interesting watching the raisins plump up with the fatty juices of the lard. I made sure to fry them until the raisins were fully rehydrated before adding them to the chicken broth bowl.

Lastly, I fried together the chili pepper seeds and the sesame seeds. I only fried them for about 4 to 5 minutes stirring continuously before adding them to the container of the nuts and spices. 

Then I added some water to this container, sealed the lid on tight and blended the ingredients until they formed a thick paste. Once I opened that container there were both earthy and sugary scents evaporating from the paste. I knew that this would be a great thickener that would add unique substances to the mole sauce.

After the last ingredients were fried, it was time to turn everything into a sauce. I pulled out my large standing blender to start blending the paste and other fried ingredients together. I had to do this in several batches in order to blend all of the ingredients. Make sure you have a good powerful blender for this process and you always add chicken broth to the blender before grinding up the mixture. If there is no liquid in the blender you will not be able to thoroughly blend the ingredients into a sauce.

WARNING: I repeat please ensure you have a powerful blender! Mine was quite old and I think I killed it by the time everything was blended. Hence the word was… R.I.P. blender… sniffle, sniffle.

Once everything was blended, I added the thick liquid back to the deep pot on medium heat. 

This way the mixture will cook further on the heat to create the incredible mole sauce. I also threw in the disc of chocolate and let it melt into the sauce. 

By allowing the sauce to simmer, it forces the flavours to submit to one another and join together into one formation. Even though this makes one sauce that works as its own flavour it still permits the other ingredients to be noticed. All playing a role in the scene, working together to make the masterpiece, the show, the performance, the success. I let the sauce start to bubble before turning it down to low heat, stirring every 3 minutes. I simmered the sauce for about 15 minutes before I decided it was finished. I wanted it to cook long enough to make the sauce form into a silky texture. If the sauce is still too thick you can add more broth until it gradually forms the desired smooth consistency.

Plating and Tasting

Alright, time to form the work of art. I grab a plate and place my cooked chicken that was made the night before and reheated it before placing it on one side of the plate. Next, I place some cooked brown rice next to the chicken. Then, finally, I take a heaping scoop of the silky, succulent mole and lather it onto the chicken and rice.

The first bite… interesting. As I took that first taste of my homemade creation I thought to myself… I really should have eaten more mole before this to know exactly what it should taste like. Way to go me…heavy sarcasm. Nevertheless, I did follow two traditional recipes and the taste was unique and delicious. The warm spices played a strong role in the dish, detecting robust flavours of cinnamon and all spice. Also, there was a lot more spiciness to the dish than I expected (sorry husband). The chili peppers and the seeds from the peppers introduced a good amount of heat to the recipe. Furthermore, since the peppers are dried they also brought forth an incredible smoky flavour to this unique creation. There was also a subtle sweetness to the dish, noted from the biscuits, the plantains and the raisins. The nuts and seeds created the thickening agent and earthy flavours for the dish. Amazing, I never would have thought to use different types of nuts and seeds in a dish to thicken it in such a distinctive way. In addition, the chocolate provides a slightly bitter yet rich quality. And you may think “Bitter?! I don’t want that!” But trust me, it is very mild and that taste does work to compliment the other flavours and ingredients in this masterpiece.

In summary, this dish did take a lot of time and work but was very enjoyable to make. It was a challenge, and I do love challenges. Especially when they are successful! The flavours were earthy, rich, spicy, slightly bitter and sweet all in one harmonious instant. Would I recommend trying to recreate your own mole? Absolutely, yes!