Moles: What exactly is a mole?

Photo Marissa Sanchez-Bastien

Photo by Laurie Smith www.lauriesmithphoto.com

This is one of the most frequently asked questions at my restaurant and cooking classes.  The simple answer is that mole is a pureed sauce, with chiles, either fresh or dried, aromatics and other seasonings,  and a thickener of some kind. But there is much more to the mole story.

The true stars of Mexican sauce cookery are main dish sauces like moles and pepianes and here it’s important to understand the philosophy of the Mexican kitchen.  A festive French meal usually consists of some kind of meat, poultry, or fish skillfully roasted, grilled, braised, poached or sautéed and served with a sauce that complements it elegantly.  For Mexicans, it’s the other way.  Meats are most often cooked in just a few ways that may at first seem monotonous to diners from other cultures.  The meat is incidental in many dishes and tends to be a plain, understated counterpoint to the fascinating textures and nuances of the sauces.

These sauces are not the “napping” kind like a hollandaise or velouté but rather range from almost purely pre-Hispanic purées based on fresh green herbs to rococo mixtures of Old and New World ingredients. The Spanish found the indigenous peoples making these complex puréed sauces and called them by the Aztec name molli, which later became mole.  Ever since, mole has been the quintessential Mexican celebratory food and is now especially associated with the Central and Southern Mexican states.  Though the mole poblano from Puebla is the most famous, all Mexicans acknowledge Oaxaca as mole center of the nation.  The state is nicknamed “The Land of the Seven Moles.  Here they and pepianes, other well-known main-dish sauces, have been raised to their highest glory.

There is no iron clad rule as to what ingredients must be used but many moles and pipianes contain tomatoes or tomatillos, onion, garlic, herbs or spices, a wide spectrum of dried and fresh chiles and some thickener.  Some sauces are given body with bread, corn masa or tortillas but the main thickener is more often ground seeds or nuts.  This main ingredient often gives a sauce its name.  Pipianes are always thickened with some sort of seed such as pumpkin, corn or sesame. And there is analmendrado  made with almonds,  a peanuty encacahuetado that you tasted at the reception last night and the caper-rich alcaparrado.

A wide range of herbs and spices is used for seasoning.  In Oaxaca, the mole verde uses the native Mexican herbs, hoja santa (Piper auritum or P. sanctum) and epazote (Chenopodium ambrosioides) along with Italian parsley and fresh rather than dried chiles. In some moles herbs and seasonings are as simple as a little black pepper and cloves.  Others have extravagant combinations of tomatoes and chiles, herbs and spices with fresh and dried fruits like the manchamanteles.

Main-dish sauces are not that difficult to make but they do require good logistics and a few basic pieces of equipment. Many of the ingredients require special preparation before being ground or puréed together. Nuts and seeds are usually fried or toasted.  Dried chiles are roasted or toasted to release their aroma and here a good comal (griddle) or cast-iron skillet is essential.  The griddle is also used to slow-roast fresh chiles, tomatoes, tomatillos, onions and garlic, a step which gives many of the sauces their characteristic but elusive smoky flavor. (Do not use a griddle with a non-stick coating like Teflon because the extended heat makes the coating come off.) I also like to toast some spices before grinding them. I had always used a coffee or spice grinder because I found the traditional molcajete (lava-stone mortar and pestle) hard to use.  But I was recently given a “molcajete amanzado” a broken in molcajete my a marvelous cook in Veracruz and now it has the smell of many moles!

Recipes will be on the website soon.