Name: Oaxaca City-style Mole (Mole Negro de Oaxaca)
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter (or omit and use part of the lard); ½ cup dark raisins; 12 whole black peppercorns; ½ unpeeled head of garlic (about 8 large cloves); 3 to 5 cups homemade chicken stock, or as needed; 1½ cups dry sherry; One 3-ounce tablet Mexican chocolate, or 3 cakes or 1 cup homemade chocolate blend; ¼ cup dried Oaxacan oregano or 2 tablespoons dried Mexican oregano, crumbled; 5 to 6 large tomatillos, husks removed; ½ cup pecan or walnut meats; 1 cup pitted prunes, coarsely chopped; 1 pound chilhuacles negros or 8 ounces each of mulato and guajillo chiles, tops removed; One 2-inch piece canela; ½ to 1 cup lard (preferably home-rendered) or as needed; ½ cup (about 2½ ounces) sesame seeds; 6 whole cloves; 1 cup pitted dried apricots, coarsely chopped; 1 large very ripe plantain, peeled and cut into ½-inch slices; ½ cup dry-roasted peanuts; ½ cup blanched slivered almonds; 2 large ripe tomatoes; 1 large or 2 medium unpeeled onions

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Food and Life of Oaxaca

By Zarela Martínez

Published 1997

About

Richer and sweeter than the preceding Mole Negro de Teotitlán, this Oaxaca City version is the pinnacle of the Spanish-Zapotec culinary art. It was one of the first Oaxacan dishes I learned, from the well-known cooking teacher Marfa Concepcion Portillo de Carballido.

In this Mole Negro, the black color comes not so much from toasting the chiles until dark but because the chiles themselves—chilhuacles negros—are black. Doña Concepcion did not toast the chiles to the same dark, brittl