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Mole negroMole negro

Dried chiles toasted and rehydrated, a long list of aromatics and spices ground with a little oil and a little chocolate, and the whole mass cooked down slowly with stock until it is thick, glossy, and bitter-sweet. The dark mole is the signature of the tradition — the dish that takes a day and rewards the patience with the deepest sauce in Mexican food.

Origin: Mexican (Oaxacan and Central, the dark moles)
Difficulty: 4 / 5
Servings: 6 (as a main), or more if spooned over rice
Prep: 45 min
Cook: 2 hr 30 min
Total: ~3 hr 15 min, plus a soak for the chiles

Technique notes

A mole is not a stew and it is not a curry, even though it looks a little like both. It is a sauce built by toasting, grinding, and then a long, low reduction — and its whole character comes from the first of those three, the toasting. Every dry ingredient that has any size to it — the dried chiles, the onion and the garlic, the tomatoes, the spices, the nuts, the seeded fruit — is toasted until its raw smell is gone and a cooked, almost-sweet smell is in the room (the same logic as a toffee, or a curry paste, run on a dry pan). That is what makes a mole taste of mole instead of of raw chile and raw nut — toasting develops the sugars, dries out the bite, and rounds out the heat.

The order, then, is: toast everything, rehydrate the chiles into a paste, grind that paste with the wet aromatics and the spices and the chocolate, and then cook the whole mass slowly with stock. The long final cook is a slow, low reduction, and it is where the sauce comes together and darkens and turns glossy — you can see it working the way you can see a braise working. This is the dish in the section that most resembles the béchamel in that both are sauce-as-dish: a long piece of work that is the plate, not the support. The only difference is that the béchamel leans on starch to thicken and the mole leans on the mass of toasted, ground ingredients to do it, so the mole is built, not thickened.

Equipment

A heavy, wide dry skillet for the toasting — it needs to hold heat evenly so the chiles toast rather than burn
A blender with a tamper, or a food processor, for the grinding; a mortar will do for a small batch
A large, deep pot with a tight lid for the long cook
A muslin cloth or a fine sieve to strain the ground mass, if you want a smoother sauce (optional — a mole can be thick and a little rough)

Ingredients

4 (about 40 g) dried guajillo chiles, stemmed, seeded, and the veins knocked out — the main body and a mild, fruity heat
2 (about 15 g) dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded — a darker, sweeter, chocolatey depth
4 (about 40 g) medium tomatoes, roasted or pan-toasted — the liquid body of the sauce
½ white onion, roughly cut
3 (15 g) cloves of garlic
1 (about 100 g) large ripe plantain, cut into chunks and fried or pan-toasted — the sweet, the body, and a little of the starch that helps it thicken
4 (about 80 g) tomatillos, roasted or pan-toasted — the bright, almost-sour top note that cuts the sweet
1 tbsp (10 g) sesame seed, toasted dry
1 tbsp (10 g) pepitas (pumpkin seed), toasted dry
25–30 g dark chocolate — the bitter depth and a little of the gloss; a good, dark bar, not a sweet one
1 small stick (about 5 cm) cinnamon, broken
½ tsp (2 g) ground cumin, whole cumin seeds if you have them
2 whole cloves
4 whole black peppercorns
1 small piece of piloncillo or a 15 g piece of soft brown sugar — to balance the bitter and the heat
1 L (4 cups) good chicken stock or a light vegetable stock, more if the mole goes too thick
3 tbsp (45 ml) neutral oil, for the toasting and the grind
1 tsp (4 g) fine salt, plus more to taste

Method

Rehydrate the chiles. Cover the stemmed, seeded guajillo and ancho chiles with boiling water in a bowl, and leave them about 15 min, or until they are soft and limp. The rehydration is not a cook — it is just to soften the dried fruit so the blender can move it — so the water is only a carrier, and you will use it when you grind. Set the chiles aside in their soaking liquid as you go through the toasting; they are the one ingredient you keep wet from the start.
Toast the aromatics and the dry bits. In the heavy dry skillet, over a medium heat, toast the cut onion and the garlic for about 3–4 min a side, until they are soft and just starting to take color. Set them aside. In the same dry pan (no added fat, which is the point — the toasting drives out moisture and develops the sugars, it is not a fry), toast the tomatoes for about 2–3 min until they blister and go a little darker, and set them aside. Then toast the tomatillos the same way, a couple of minutes, and set them aside. Finally, toast the sesame, the pepitas, and the cinnamon, one at a time, for about 30 s–1 min each, until they smell toasty and are a shade darker — toast, not black. The smell is your timer: each of these goes from raw to toasty to burnt in a matter of seconds, and the moment the smell turns from "roasted" to "ash," you are past it, so keep the pan moving.
Fry the plantain. In a little of the oil, over a medium heat, fry the cut plantain in a few batches until it is soft and browned all over — the plantain is the sweet and the body of the mole, and it needs to cook through and take color before it goes through the blender. It is the one of the wet ingredients that really needs a fry rather than a toast, because it is starchy and sweet and needs the oil to brown rather than just the dry heat.
Grind it all to a paste. In the blender, put the rehydrated chiles with a little of their soaking liquid, the toasted onion and garlic, the tomatoes, the tomatillos, the plantain, the sesame, the pepitas, the cinnamon, the cumin, the cloves, the peppercorns, and half the chocolate, and the oil. Blend with a few stops and starts, pushing the mass down with the tamper, until you have a coarse, thick, dark paste. If the blender is struggling, add the stock a few tablespoons at a time — you want a thick paste that the blender can move, not a liquid. Taste the paste and add the rest of the chocolate and the piloncillo or the sugar, and grind them in, and a good pinch of salt. The paste should be bitter-sweet and deep, with the heat of the chile present but not the whole thing — if it tastes sharp or raw, more chocolate and a little more sweetness, and more toasting next time around.
The long cook. Into the large, deep pot, add a little of the stock and a little of the oil, over a medium heat. Stir in half of the paste, and let it cook, stirring often, for about 10 min — this is a low, patient reduction, and the paste will sizzle and bubble and darken as the oil and the water in the ground ingredients cook off. Add the rest of the paste and the rest of the stock, leave the lid on loosely, and reduce the heat to a low simmer. Leave the mole cooking, uncovered or loosely covered, for about 2 hr, stirring every 15–20 min or so to keep it from catching on the bottom, until it is thick, glossy, and the oil has started to bead at the edges — and the color has deepened from a reddish paste to a dark, almost-black sauce. Taste and adjust the salt, the heat (a little of the chile liquid if it is tame), and the sweet (a little more sugar if it is sharp). The mole thickens as it cools, so it should be a little looser than you want it at the end, and the way to test it is to lift a spoon and let it fall back — it should coat the back of the spoon and leave a slow, thick trail, not run off in a thin stream. A mole that is too thin simply cooks a little longer and reduces a little more; a mole that is too thick thins with a little more stock. It is the most forgiving of the long dishes in the section because the variable you are watching is thickness, not a chemical change.
Serve it over what it wants. A mole negro is made for a protein under it — a roast chicken breast, a pork shoulder, a slice of al pastor, or, for the dish at its best, something as simple as a spoonful of rice and a soft-cooked egg under the sauce. Spoon it over, generously, so the protein and the bed underneath both take a little of it, and serve it hot. It keeps, and in fact improves, overnight in the fridge, and you can reheat it with a a little stock — the mole is one of the few sauces that gets better with a second cook on it.

Common failures

It tastes raw or sharp, like dried chile and raw nut. The toasting was rushed (step 2), and the dry ingredients never got the chance to develop. Keep the pan moving, and toast each of them until the smell turns from raw to toasty — that is the whole flavor, and it is cheaper to take the time than to redo a mole that is tasting of the bag it came out of.
It is thin and runny, not thick and glossy. It has not cooked long enough to reduce (step 5), and the water in the ground mass has not had time to cook off and the sauce to thicken. Keep it at a low simmer, uncovered or loosely covered, and it will come together and darken — the gloss is the sign the oil and the water have worked together, and it comes with time, not with a thickener.
It is bitter and sharp, like burnt chile. One of the toasts ran past toasty to burnt (step 2), and burnt chile is an acrid, not a smoky, flavor. Toast a little less next time, and to balance the one that is already burnt, a little more sweet (step 4) and a little more stock to dilute the sharpness.
It is too hot, or the heat is a sharp bite, not a deep one. The chiles were over-toasted (step 2), or they were used with their seeds and veins in, and the heat is concentrated and sharp rather than developed and soft. For a mole that is already too hot, more sweet and more stock, and next time seed the chiles more and toast them a little more gently — the mole's heat should be a low, warm presence, not a bite.

Variations & substitutions

Ancho as the main, instead of guajillo. Swap the chiles to all or mostly ancho and the mole is darker, sweeter, and less of a fruity heat — the mole flavor is the same, the character just leans more of the sweet and the less of the bright. Different chiles are different moles, and the chile is the variable that moves the whole dish more than anything else.
With a little more meat. The mole is a sauce that wants a protein, and it is as happy over a slow-braised pork shoulder as it is over a roast chicken. The mole does not change; only what it sits on does, and that is the whole point of a mole — it is the sauce, and the meat is the support that the sauce is built over. A steakhouse cut or a thick steak under a spoon of the mole is a plate that should not work and does.
a lighter, quicker mole. For a day when the full mole is more than you can spend, a mole negro with fewer of the toasts — the chiles, the onion and the garlic, the tomato and the tomatillo, and the chocolate — still reads as a mole and gets the character right in half the time. You lose some of the body and the sweet of the plantain and the nuts, and you keep the bitter-sweet depth and the long cook, which is the part that matters.

What to serve with it

A mole negro is a meal on its own, and it wants a protein underneath and a bed of plain white rice to the side, because the rice is the neutral that lets the complexity of the sauce land without competition. It is the dish that a simple breakfast points toward when the table wants something that has taken the week — the mole is the long end of the Mexican-table scale, and the eggs the quick end. Two of them on the same plate, a spoon of the mole over a soft-cooked egg and a tortilla to the side, is a whole lunch.

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