{"id":53,"date":"2008-06-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/20"},"modified":"2010-03-25T22:08:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T22:08:00","slug":"making-mole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/13\/making-mole\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Mole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The mid-June afternoon is the warmest we have had in a week or two, and I find myself standing next to the stove stirring the lava-like mass at the bottom of the big kettle.&nbsp;It spits and pops and sends small jets of dark red grease upward to catch the unwary forearm.&nbsp;A simmering pot of broth steams on the left burner, making the small hairs around my face curl from the humidity.&nbsp;This is not the type of cooking where one can leave the room and pursue other tasks, no matter how urgent.&nbsp;We will serve this chocolate-laced savory concoction of ground nuts, seeds and both fresh and dried chiles over rice at the annual Taste of Wine, Chocolate and Ale to benefit the Mendocino Music Festival.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">The recipe for this complex and labor-intensive stew comes from the state of Puebla in Mexico.&nbsp;It has been lovingly and awkwardly translated from its original Spanish, and modified to reflect the types of chiles available at my local Mexican market.&nbsp;As most of the Mexican immigrants here on the coast hail from either Oaxaca or the Yucatan, substitutions from the original are mandatory.&nbsp;The actual types and proportions are a guarded secret, but the process itself is the real story.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">One begins by charring the fresh vegetables, tomatillos still in their husks, white onions, and fresh Poblano chiles.&nbsp;Traditionally, this is done on a comal, a cast iron griddle the size of a garbage can lid.&nbsp;To hasten the process while still preserving the flavor, I roast each of the items in a very hot convection oven until the skins are blackened and the juices ooze and caramelize on the pan.&nbsp;Fresh corn tortillas and a torn-up stale bolillo (soft roll) are fried in pork lard and set aside to cool.&nbsp;The dried chiles are soaked in boiling water to soften them for handling.&nbsp;Blanched almonds and pumpkin seeds are also fried until toasty brown and fragrant, and whole cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds, cloves and allspice are toasted in a dry pan.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">The first ingredients to be pureed are the onions and the tomatillos, husks and skins removed.&nbsp;Next the tortillas and fried bread are ground to fine crumbs and stirred into the vegetable mixture.&nbsp;The nuts and spices are combined and processed to a powder, taking care not to process so long that almond-pumpkin butter results.&nbsp;When combined with the other ingredients, the mixture looks like some type of dough.&nbsp;The roasted Poblanos are stemmed, pureed and added as well, darkening the mixture with their almost black-green hue.&nbsp;The soaked dried chiles are also stemmed and carefully seeded so the finished stew is not fiery hot.&nbsp;Plastic gloves are required for this procedure, as it is too easy to inadvertently touch lips or eyes with fingers infused with the potent oils.&nbsp;A handful of the seeds are toasted and added back to the chiles for just a bit of heat.&nbsp;The mixture is drained and then fried in more lard until the dark red chiles turn almost black and their pungent oils fill the air.&nbsp;The thick paste is scooped into the food processor with water to thin, and pureed until it resembles brick colored paint.&nbsp;When everything is combined, the raw mole is faintly reddish and flecked with darker specks of chiles and spices.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Though this process takes over an hour, it is not the most time consuming part of preparing mole.&nbsp;The woman that gave me the recipe told me that the most important part is when the love is added to the stew.&nbsp;Heating more pork lard in my biggest kettle until it froths; I prepare to finish the mole.&nbsp;When I add the raw paste to the fat, everything boils and bubbles frantically.&nbsp;I must stir almost constantly at this point, so that the paste browns but does not burn.&nbsp;Soon I add large ladles of hot chicken broth, alternately thinning and thickening the mixture as it cooks over a period of hours.&nbsp;Halfway through, I add several rounds of chopped up Mexican chocolate, allowing it to melt into the paste.&nbsp;Now stirring is non-negotiable as the chocolate will burn if left sitting on the bottom of the kettle.&nbsp;This is where the love comes in, as the mole must be nursed along, stirring constantly, as it darkens and continues to thicken.&nbsp;I imagine Mexican women, mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers, taking turns stirring the mole through the afternoon as they laugh and talk and share the joys of the kitchen.&nbsp;Unfortunately, my only companions this day are my dogs, sitting patiently at my feet hoping for a small taste of what is to come.&nbsp;The final ingredient added is a glass of white vinegar, the acid providing a necessary counterpoint to the richness.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Dishes like this take much too long for most of us to prepare in our modern, hurried world.&nbsp;Even the Mexican grocery store sells mole in a small glass jar, to be seasoned with the cook&rsquo;s own variations on spices, often reminiscent of her mother&rsquo;s recipe.&nbsp;There is something elemental about preparing a dish that takes most of a day to cook.&nbsp;There is an intimate connection between the cook and the kitchen, and the love and attention that is required to transform the mundane ingredients of an everyday salsa into a complex and heartening Mole Poblano.&nbsp;Spicy, savory, bitter, sweet, and sour; the flavors that punctuate every region&rsquo;s culinary traditions meld together in a dish that warms the hearts of all of those who partake of its magic.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The mid-June afternoon is the warmest we have had in a week or two, and I find myself standing next to the stove stirring the lava-like mass at the bottom of the big kettle.&nbsp;It spits and pops and sends small jets of dark red grease upward to catch the unwary forearm.&nbsp;A simmering pot of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,15,5,7,18],"tags":[15,5,7,18,16],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assaggiare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}