Mole Sauce

The History:
Mole sauce comes from Mexico- mole means "concoction" or "sauce", and, according to Wikipedia is defined as a thick, homogenous sauce with complex flavors. Sounds about right. Wikipedia listed 9 different types of mole, from different regions, and using different combinations of chiles, nuts, vegetables and spices.

                                                                       The Process:
It's a lot of work. I'll put that out there first. First of all, I had to find a recipe. I googled and found dozens of seemingly legit recipes, but each recipe was totally different. (There was even one that said: buy a can of mole sauce at the store in the ethnic foods aisle, heat, and add shredded chicken. Um, no.) There were very few common denominators in the recipes (besides chocolate and chiles). I ended up compiling a list of the most often mentioned ingredients and made a run to the Italian grocery store (which unfortunately did not have ancho, mulato or pasilo negro chiles- or tomatillos, but did have plain old jalapeno chiles).
I also assumed that since there were at least 15 completely different recipes, I couldn't go too wrong with experimentation, as long as I included some type of chile and chocolate. Perfect- experimentation cooking is my favorite!
There are also a lot of steps involved with making mole sauce no matter what recipe you go with. There's roasting, frying, boiling, toasting, broiling, puree-ing, dry-roasting, and a lot of grinding. All this will lead to a greater appreciation of a really good mole sauce at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant.

The Recipe:
What follows is vaguely what I did to make my mole- I'm getting the idea that everyone's mole is a little different and depends on what they've got in their cupboards. (One recipe included frying a piece of french bread in butter and throwing it in the sauce, pre-puree. I skipped this, I think it was to thicken the sauce, but mine was plenty thick.) I've also written the recipe to make it easier to use. If you do make mole (my version or any other) I think because of the plethora of spices and flavors, you really can just eyeball it, and use whatever inspires you. And I also think that amounts/measuring isn't terribly important. (Maybe this is sacrilege in the mole world, I don't know.)

Jordan's Invented Mole:
1. Veggies: Chop 2-3 tomatoes, 5-6 garlic cloves, and one onion into largish chunks. Toss with olive oil, and roast in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 or so minutes, stirring once to prevent burning. Set aside.

2. Broth: Simmer (in a large saucepan) one container of chicken (or veggie) broth (I used the free-range happy chicken kind from Trader Joe's, but any broth should work) and one cinnamon stick, and about 1/2 cup of raisins. Once it's simmering, add the veggies from step one.

3. Chiles: I used fresh jalapeno and whole dried chipotle chiles, but the recipes also suggested ancho, mulato, and pasilo negro chiles. Use whatever interesting chiles you can find at your grocery store. Cut the stems off the chiles, discard, and loosely chop the chiles, then heat a dry frying pan to medium-high heat. Dry-toast the chiles on the frying pan until they are popping and blistering, but not smoking. Add to the broth mixture. I used 3 dried chipotle chiles, and 4 fresh jalapeno. In retrospect, this was too much.

4. Nuts: Recipes called for one or more of the following: peanuts, pinenuts, almonds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds. I had the last three, so I used them all. I toasted all three on the dry frying pan until they were lightly browned. (First I peeled the almonds by putting them in boiling water for a minute, the skins slid right off.) After the nuts/seeds were toasted, I set them aside. (I used about 1/2 cup almonds, 1/4 cup each pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds.)

5. Spices: I used about 1+ tablespoon total of the following spices: Cumin, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, peppercorns, chili flakes. I had whole cloves and peppercorns, so I ground them in my Samoan spice pounder. Toast all of the spices on the dry frying pan.

6. Grinding: I scrubbed the coffee out of our coffee grinder, then ground the nuts, seeds, and spices in batches, but reserved about 1/2 tablespoon of the sesame seeds because I thought the sauce would look nice with a few sprinkles of sesame seeds. It did.

7. Combine everything (ground nut/spice mixture) in the saucepot, add more broth if necessary (to make sure everything is covered.) At this point, I threw in a small handful of fresh cilantro, because why not?

8. Puree. I have a fantastic immersion blender which has changed my life. (I recommend one- makes blending/pureeing so much easier than transferring everything to a blender!)

9. For some reason, every recipe at this point said to heat several tablespoons of oil (one said lard... but no thank you) in a larger saucepan, then add the sauce, and simmer for 60-90 minutes, then add the chocolate (3.5 oz) and then simmer another half hour before cooking. So since there was consensus, I did this step. I think it was perhaps unnecessary. I think you could just simmer the pureed mixture, then add the chocolate towards the end. Whatever floats your boat.

10. Finally, (I told you this was a complicated sauce!) I boiled and then shredded happy, free range chicken breast, and added that to the mole sauce.

The Results: 
After all that, it had better be good, right? I tucked the mole chicken in a tortilla with cubed sweet potatoes, and served it with slow-cooked black beans (thank you crock pot!) topped with yesterday's chimichurri sauce (Argentina, meet Mexico!) and a side of sauteed kale (kale sauteed with garlic, lemon, butter, and honey, which is an exquisite combination!). It was one of the most flavorful meals I've had in a long time. The mole was wonderful- complex, spicy (really spicy), chocolatey, but not in a gooey way, and boldly rich.

In the future, I will likely order mole at restaurants to get new ideas, and may make (every once in a while) a gigantic batch of mole to freeze in one-cup containers to use on occasion. The sauce was incredible, but a lot of work, and more involved than I have time for every night. Plus, we rarely cook chicken at home (once every 2 or 3 months?) and I'm honestly unsure what else you do with mole sauce. (It doesn't seem right to put tofu in it.)  I will also use less spice. One of the problems with eyeballing it is getting overenthusiastic about spices and over-doing them.
I'd also like to try using different types of chiles, but that will probably have to wait until I leave New Haven and it's dearth of Mexican grocery stores.
Let me know if you attempt mole- or if you have an easier recipe, or if I broke the sacred rules of mole making in the process of devising my own recipe!