Mole Sauce

from Scratch

We've seen mole made by Doña Martha using a prepared mole paste.  Today we will watch Adriana make mole from scratch.  She making pollo mole, but the accent is on making the mole.

Mole is a chile sauce with a bunch of nuts and spices and a bit of chocolate.  Today Adriana is using a medium hot chile, guajillo which is sometimes called chile colorado larguito.  Which dried chile to use, or how many different chiles, is a cook's choice.  The chiles chosen will determine the heat index of the mole.  There are many versions of mole.  It varies from cook to cook, region to region.  Look here for much more about moles and several recipes from different parts of México.

The ingredients are, from top left

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 pound guajillo chiles

2 ancho chiles

one bread roll

a banana

1/2 onion

3 cloves

4 black pepper corns

2 garlic cloves

one broken up 3" cinnamon stick or 2 t-spoons of ground cinnamon

one disc of Mexican chocolate

about 1 cup dried mixed spices commercial blend (garlic, onion, red chile flakes, and other spices)

1/2 cup each of peanuts and pecans.

The bread roll is toasted and added to the blinder with everything except the chiles and dried spices mixture.

The chicken leg quarters are boiling.  They'll be added to the finished sauce.

The chiles are briefly sautéed one by one in hot oil -- only a few seconds, just enough to soften them. They'll get bitter if cooked too long.

The soften chiles are added (crammed in) to the blinder.

She begins by cracking pecans to get about half a cup of meat.

Look here for more dried chiles that could be used to make mole..

The dried spice mixture is toasted in a bit of olive oil and then added to the blender.

Two cups of the chicken water are added, and then the blender does it's thing.  She added a bit more water to get the mole to the right consistency.

The blended mole is heated to nearly boiling.  Then the chicken quarters are added and stirred in briefly.

Mole from scratch is definitely better than the stuff from the jar.