Mesoamerica · Volume 01, The Highland Mole and Maize World
Mole Poblano
Puebla, Mexico
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 4 hours 30
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Mole poblano
Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's recipe, via Larousse Cocina . Serves 24 . 4 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 250g chile mulato, cleaned of seed and vein
- 125g chile pasilla, cleaned of seed and vein
- 125g chile ancho, cleaned of seed and vein
- 1½ cups lard
- 150g (1 cup, unpeeled) almonds
- 25g (2 tbsp, peeled and toasted) peanuts
- 50g (½ cup, halves) pecans
- ¼ cup, peeled pepitas
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 500g tomato
- 500g tomatillo
- 1 plantain, fried
- ⅔ cup raisins
- 5 whole cloves
- 1 tsp, whole peppercorns black pepper
- 5 berries allspice
- 1 tsp, whole cumin
- ½ tsp, whole anise
- 10cm stick Mexican cinnamon (canela)
- ½ tsp, dried thyme
- 1 tbsp, dried oregano
- 12 garlic cloves, roasted
- 4 litres chicken stock
Method
- Clean the three chiles of seed and vein, then fry and grind each variety separately.
- Toast and grind the almonds, peanuts, pecans, pepitas and sesame separately.
- Cook down the tomato, tomatillo, fried plantain and raisins separately.
- Toast and grind the whole cloves, black pepper, allspice, cumin, anise, cinnamon, thyme and oregano with the roasted garlic, separately again.
- Build up each stage in turn with repeated additions of stock and lard.
- Combine everything and simmer long, working the four litres of chicken stock through the process across every stage. This is several separate preparations, each correct on its own terms, brought together only at the end.
What a modern chef changes
Chile fidelity, chinois, controlled heat
Rungs 02, 04
Method
- Dry and grind each chile variety separately in a dehydrator and spice grinder rather than soaking all three together, so mulato’s chocolate note, pasilla’s raisin depth and ancho’s fruit each register distinctly rather than blurring into one generic “mole chile” flavour.
- Pass the finished purée through a chinois after the high-power blender, for a texture no home blender achieves alone, closer to what a metate’s slow grind would give without the multi-hour labour.
- Hold the final simmer in a low, steady oven or a sous vide-adjacent water bath rather than a stovetop, where the risk of scorching a two-day investment in its last twenty minutes is real and avoidable.