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Very often when encountering the word “mole” on a Mexican restaurant menu, the accompanying description (a rich, reddish-brown sauce) is a vague palliative that oversimplifies what is basically a generic Spanish word for sauce. The word derives from the ancient Aztec language, Nahuatl — mōlli.
But there is nothing simple about mole at all. Often made from scratch and insanely labor intensive, mole is known for its complexity, breadth of ingredients and spectrum of colors.
It’s true, many mole dishes found on menus are a rich, dark sauce with a deep reddish-brown tint. That’s the mole American diners are most familiar with. This is often mole poblano and it can — but doesn’t have to — contain chocolate.
Typically served ladled over chicken, pork or enchiladas, the sauce varies from a brothy consistency to chocolate-pudding thick — and yes, chocolate can be an ingredient of brown mole, but there’s not enough of it that you’d want to pour mole over an ice cream sundae.
That’s because traditional mole, whether used as a sauce or marinade, has a savory, not sweet profile.
There are seven categories of moles that exist in a rainbow of colors, including yellow (amarillo, blended with ground corn dough called masa), coloradito (brownish-red rojo), black (negro), and verde (green, made from ground pumpkin seeds, tomatillos and cilantro). Other versions contain a diverse range of seeds, like pipián, with pepitas or pumpkin seeds.
The term mole also encompasses a version that’s well-known to most Mexican food lovers. Guacamole — a combination of the Spanish word for avocado (aguacate, pronounced “AH-gua-CAH-te”) and mole is the perennially popular sauce made with mashed avocados.
“Every mole is unique,” Luna’s Tacos & Tequila Executive Chef Chris Wornowicz said. “It’s sort of like gumbo where you have a base of onions, celery and green peppers. With mole, the typical start is with dried pasilla, ancho and mulato peppers.”
Ancho and mulato peppers (also called chiles) are dried poblano peppers that have been harvested later and therefore have a deeper, often red or brown color.
At Luna’s, Wornowicz makes a traditional brown mole with the above-mentioned peppers and adds nuts, seeds, raisins, tomatoes and a little Mexican chocolate in the form of Abuelita Nestlé tablets.
“It’s a minute amount of chocolate but what we get from it is more of the sweetness and the cinnamon,” he said.
The ingredients are toasted in a skillet and reconstituted with water that the peppers have soaked in on a slow simmer for twenty minutes. Unlike a traditional chicken mole dish where the meat is smothered, Luna’s slow braises pork with peppers and onions, shreds the pork and mixes in the mole to create a stew. It’s served on a corn tortilla topped with diced onion and cilantro.
“Mole is pretty heavy sauce; it’s very potent with all the peppers but it’s relatively mild. The anchos give a slight kick but it’s not that spicy,” Wornowicz said.
Sometimes moles cook for days, depending on who’s making it, he said, noting that it’s like green chile in Colorado or New Mexico — everybody’s version is a little bit different and cooks have their own way of making it. There’s no right or wrong; the taste is based on preference.
The sauce has existed for hundreds of years and may have Aztec roots. But the Mexican states of Puebla and Oaxaca each claim to have invented it, and the sauce is predominantly served there.
There are several legends surrounding its creation. One of the most endearing involves the Convent of Santa Clara in Puebla in the late 17th century, where, depending on the version, either the archbishop or the viceroy of New Spain was coming for dinner and the nuns had little to feed him. They cobbled together a mix of spices, chiles, nuts, stale bread and a bit of chocolate, ground it together in a mocajete — a stone mortar and pestle common to the indigenous populations of the country — and ladled the deep brown sauce over the convent’s old (and probably very tough) turkey.
The true origins remain as murky as the sauce itself, and no written recipes existed until after 1810 and the Mexican War of Independence.
Regardless of the state where it originated, mole is heralded today as Mexico’s national dish, according to El Cielo Mexican Restaurant in Greeley and Loveland.
The list of ingredients is extensive and can number over 30. In addition to the tri-pepper base, there can be black pepper, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, tomatoes, tomatillos, garlic, sesame or squash seeds, dried fruits and sometimes chocolate.
In Greeley, in addition to Luna’s street taco mole, a handful of Mexican restaurants feature the dish on their menus. Because it’s labor intensive, mole isn’t as common as you might think.
Cazadores Mexican Grill and Cantina: the deep brown sauce simmers for 21 hours and its most unique ingredient is posole, used as a thickening agent. Served over sliced chicken, you’ll taste raisins, peanuts, sweet peppers, cayenne and paprika.
El Cielo Mexican Restaurant: the mole here has rich deep flavor in a thick, creamy sauce. It’s served ladled over grilled chicken (pollo asado) with rice, beans and tortillas for sopping up the leftover sauce.
3 Margaritas: the lightest mole of the four, this sauce is noticeably chocolate-forward with mild spice.
Because of its rich flavor, pair mole with red wine or dark Mexican beer, like Modelo negro, to complement the sweetness.
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