Mole de Xico

As tradition built it

Mole de Xico

Xico, near Coatepec

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• roughly 3/4lb (about 40 chiles), or a mix of mulato and pasilla mulato chile
• 200g ancho chile
• xoconostle (tart prickly pear)
• 1, ripe, peeled and sliced plantain
• half a cup, roasted peanuts
• 2 corn tortillas, cut into strips tortilla
• 1 cup, slivered almonds
• cashews
• breadcrumbs
• 1 large, unpeeled onion
• half a cup, dark raisins
• 8 cloves, unpeeled garlic
• 1 x 85g tablet, grated chocolate
• quarter cup sesame
• 1 x 5cm piece cinnamon
• half a teaspoon, whole peppercorns black pepper
• 2, whole clove
• half a teaspoon, dried oregano
• half a teaspoon, aniseed anise

Method

1. Toast and fry each ingredient separately before grinding: the mulato chile, ancho chile, xoconostle, plantain, peanuts, tortilla, almonds, cashews, breadcrumbs, onion, raisins, garlic, chocolate, sesame, cinnamon, black pepper, clove, oregano and anise.
2. Grind together and finish slow, over low heat, in a clay pot.

Notes

Distinct from mole poblano in being noticeably sweeter and carrying xoconostle for a sour-sweet note Puebla's version does not have. Built from mulato and ancho chiles alongside twenty five or more further ingredients; the recipe is traditionally held by a molera, usually a woman, whose own judgement decides the final proportion of each ingredient rather than a fixed written ratio.

What a modern chef changes

Twenty five separate toasts, one smooth paste

Rung 04

Method

1. Toast every dry ingredient, chile, seed and spice, separately in the spice grinder's own preheated bowl or on the Big Green Egg's plancha, exactly to its own point.
2. Blend the finished paste in a high-power blender for a properly smooth base.
3. Pass the paste through a chinois for a texture closer to a Xico molera's years of practised metate grinding than a home blender alone achieves.
4. Dehydrate a portion of the plantain before it goes in, concentrating its natural sugar so the finished mole's sweetness reads as fruit rather than as added sugar.