A Mole Sauce Recipe

What an election this has been.  This post isn’t about politics though, there is enough read about that right now.  This blog post is about the delightful mole sauce we made to upgrade our Taco Tuesday dinner last night!

We did rock the vote though.

Mole is a chocolate pepper sauce used in Mexican cooking.  You don’t find it at just any Mexican restaurant though. Because there are quite a number of ingredients and a fair amount of time goes into creating it, you don’t see it that often.  It isn’t common like tomato sauce or pesto; I don’t think I have ever seen a can of it in the store!

I have been feeding my mole obsession lately at a little Mexican restaurant called Viva Mexico that we accidentally stumbled on in Flemington.  The food is excellent, more than reasonably price and the staff is super friendly.  We went there this past weekend with Violet. And of course I had the cheese enchiladas with the house made mole sauce.  We ordered a plate of sliced avocado on the side for Miss Violet to snack on.

And, she tried her first lime!

With all the election drama yesterday I was craving comfort food.  It was Taco Tuesday for us, and the addition of mole sauce on top really dressed it up.  I searched around on the web for a recipe, but everyone seemed to have a different take on it.  Who knew there were so many ways to make a mole?  Below is the Pretty Bird Farm take on mole, using up ingredients we already had on hand, and allowing our final tomato and pepper harvests to really go out with a bang!

This is a huge batch of mole that is going to complement at least a dozen dinners this winter for us.  You can cut it in half or quarters, but with all the love that goes into creating it, I think it is best made in mass.  We froze our extra batches in freezer safe containers and ice cubes for easy add-ons to the next Taco Tuesday, Eggs & Potatoes Night or Pasta Dinner.

Makes 3-3.5 quarts of mole:

• 6 Cups Vegetable Broth
• 6 Cups Sweet & Hot Peppers (cored but not chopped)
• 2 Tortillas
• 6 Cups Quartered Tomatoes
• 1 Large Onion
• 2 Cinnamon Sticks
• 1 Garlic Bulb
• 6 Allspice Berries
• 2 Cups Hazlenuts
• 2 Tbsp Cumin
• 10 oz. Chocolate
• ¼ Cup Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Salt

Directions:

Core peppers and heat in a dry pan searing them until they become heated and aromatic:

A handful of Anchos, a handful of Sweet Bells, a few Cayennetta, a few Lemon Dream

Then blend them with 2 cups of vegetable broth.  Work in batches if your food processor or blender only fits small quantities.  This is all going into one pot to be mixed together, so don’t worry about each element mixing perfectly together as you go.  As my food processor filled up, I emptied it out half way storing what was blended already in a bowl on the side.

Chop up and toast 2 tortillas in the pan you used for the peppers. Throw them in the food processor, mixing them in with the pepper broth mixture.  Roughly chop your tomatoes and heat them up in your same frying pan. Cook them for about 15 minutes.

Go ahead and be daring and throw a few green tomatoes in there!

You want to bring out a roasting flavor but not completely cook them down to sauce.  Then put them in the food processor mixing them in with the peppers and broth.  Heat up some olive oil in your frying pan.  Roughly chop your onion and cook it down roasting the nuts, roughly chopped garlic, cinnamon sticks, allspice and cumin.

Sizzle Sizzle Sizzle-By the way, these hazelnuts are special: they were grown, picked, shelled and flown back to the US by our neighbor Irene all the way from Italy!  Thanks Irene!

Add more olive oil as necessary so nothing sticks or burns.  When the onions begin to caramelize and nuts start toasting, remove the cinnamon sticks and allspice and discard them.  Blend the onions and nuts and mix in to your tomato pepper mixture.

In a large soup pot (at least 5 Quart size) heat 4 cups of vegetable broth, 10 oz chocolate, (treat yourself to something nice like the baking chocolate we picked up from Sciascaia Confections at the Stockton Market) ¼ Cup Sugar and 1 Tbsp of salt until the chocolate melts and everything mixes together. Then transfer all of the other blended ingredients into the big pot and mix well.

It might not look pretty, but this sauce is a little bit of heaven!

Allow this to heat and thicken up a bit and mix thoroughly.  If you are happy with the consistency of your mix, go ahead and enjoy it like it is.  You can also transfer it all back to your blender in batches.  I used an immersion blender and just mixed everything up a bit more in the pot that it was in.

Top off your Tuesday Taco bowl and enjoy!

Mashed Avocado, Quinoa, Mexican Cheese, Refried Beans, Lime, Cornbread and One Pretty Bird Farm Egg Over Easy

Want to learn more about Mole?  Check out the wiki-there is a ton of history and folklore about this beautiful sauce!

And don’t forget to make the kids do the dishes!

Love Mole?  Let us know!   We would love to hear if you give our recipe a go or put your own spin on it!  Tiffany