Holy Mole

Oaxaca is famous for its food.  One of the best known dishes is mole negro, or “black sauce.”  The name is deceptively simple.  The sauce contains a rich variety of ingredients and flavors.

The most common way to prepare a mole negro meal – at least, in the city – is to buy a bag of the concentrated sauce at the market, mix it with a little chicken broth, and eat it over chicken or pork.  Christi showed us how to do this a few months ago, and it made for a delicious meal.  But when I asked Christi how to make the actual mole, she just chuckled, listed some ingredients, and said it is complicated.  That sparked my curiosity.

When our tutor, Mercedes, told us her aunt occasionally makes mole negro from scratch, I jumped at the opportunity.  Last week I spent two afternoons at their house seeing the process from start to finish.  I offered to help, but quickly it became clear that my role was to watch and learn.  So that is what I did.

Tia with the ingredients, including three kinds of peppers, six Ritz crackers, a stale roll, and more.

Boiling the peppers and sauteing the tomatoes.

We used a blender, but when Tia learned it from her mother they used a mortar and pestle. 

The traditional ceramic (lead-free!) casuela was a gift from Mercedes' student, a potter from Canada.

Day 2 was for making the mole black.  These tostadas served the purpose.

When Tia said to "burn" the tostadas, she was not kidding.

                              

                               Adding chicken broth as the final ingredient.

I will add a picture of the final dish to another post, since I will not taste it until later today.  It takes a couple days for the mole to turn as black as it should be.

Changing gears….  Here is something Max and I saw from our taxi on the way to soccer practice last week.

This looked like a funeral but there was no coffin, so it must have been for something else.

When we get home, we will miss seeing things like a marching band with its entourage marching down a busy street during rush hour.  –Harrison