Recipe

Mole Poblano

8 servings (about 1.2 L mole sauce) · prep 1 h · cook 3 h

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• dinner
• mexican

Authored by the maintainer; Puebla method, simplified to about thirty ingredients from the traditional sixty-plus.

Ingredients

the meat

• 1 turkey leg + 1 thigh (about 1.5 kg), or 1.5 kg chicken thighs

the chiles

• 6 dried mulato chiles, stems and seeds removed — Mexican dried-chile farm
• 4 dried ancho chiles, stems and seeds removed
• 4 dried pasilla chiles, stems and seeds removed
• 1 dried chipotle chile (or 1 canned chipotle in adobo)

the seeds and nuts

• 60 g sesame seeds
• 40 g raw pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds)
• 60 g whole blanched almonds — California almond orchard
• 40 g raw peanuts (or substitute more almonds)

the fruit

• 40 g raisins
• 1 small ripe plantain, sliced 1 cm thick (or 1 thick slice stale bread)

the base

• 3 ripe plum tomatoes — Origin not credited
• 3 tomatillos, husks removed
• 6 cloves garlic — Tropea allium farm
• 1 small white onion, quartered

the spices

• 1 × 5 cm canela (Mexican cinnamon stick) — Sri Lanka cinnamon estate
• 3 whole cloves
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp anise seeds
• 1 tsp black peppercorns — Kerala pepper estate

the finish

• 90 g Mexican chocolate (tablet of Ibarra or Abuelita) or 60 g dark chocolate + 30 g sugar — Tabasco cocoa farm

the cook

• 3 tbsp lard (or neutral oil)
• 1.5 L chicken stock
• Sea salt to taste — Trapani salt pans

the serve

• Toasted sesame seeds for garnish

Method

1. Simmer the turkey or chicken in stock with a pinch of salt for 45 minutes until tender. Remove meat; reserve stock. · 45 min
2. Toast all the chiles in a dry skillet over medium heat, 30 seconds per side, until fragrant. Submerge in hot water for 20 minutes. Drain (reserve a cup of the soaking liquid). · 20 min
3. In the same dry skillet, toast separately: sesame seeds (until golden), pumpkin seeds (until they pop), almonds and peanuts (until golden), coriander and anise seeds. Set each aside.
4. In a little lard, fry the plantain slices until golden. Set aside. Then char the tomatoes, tomatillos, garlic (skin on), and onion on the same skillet until blackened in spots.
5. In a blender, working in batches with some of the stock and chile soaking liquid, blend everything: chiles, all toasted seeds and nuts, raisins, fried plantain, charred tomato/tomatillo/garlic/onion, all the spices. Blend until very smooth — strain through a sieve if you want the silkiest texture. · 10 min
6. In a heavy pot, heat the remaining lard until shimmering. Pour the mole paste in — it should sizzle hard. Stir constantly for 5 minutes — this is the *frying* step that develops flavour. · 5 min
7. Add 1 L of stock. Bring to a simmer. Cook 30 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce thickens and an orange-black oil rises to the surface. · 30 min
8. Drop in the chocolate. Stir until dissolved. Taste — adjust salt. The flavour should be deep, slightly bitter, faintly sweet, with the chiles in the foreground and the chocolate in the back.
9. Add the cooked turkey or chicken to the mole. Simmer 10 minutes to marry. · 10 min
10. Plate: pieces of meat under a generous ladle of sauce. Scatter toasted sesame seeds. Serve with white rice and warm corn tortillas.

Notes

Mole poblano is the dish that introduces the rest of the world to the
fact that Mexican cuisine has a complicated formal tradition older
than most of Europe's. The classical version uses sixty to a hundred
ingredients across multiple subcategories — chiles, fruits, nuts,
seeds, spices, aromatics, thickeners, chocolate — each toasted and
blended in sequence. The thirty-ingredient version here is the home
cook's compromise.

Day-two improvement is real. Day-three is even better. The sauce
freezes well in 500 ml portions and is the highest-leverage thing
to have in a freezer — drop frozen mole into a pan with any cooked
poultry and you have dinner in 15 minutes.

Origin myth: the dish was invented at the Convent of Santa Rosa in
Puebla in the 17th century by Sor Andrea de la Asunción, who
improvised a sauce for a visiting bishop. Like most origin myths
it's almost certainly false; the dish is older and developed
collectively. The story endures because it makes a good plaque on
the convent wall.