Name: Oaxacan-Style Mole (Mole Estilo Oaxaca)
Yield: About 3 quarts
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: ½ cup dry-roasted unsalted peanuts; ½ cup sesame seeds; ½ cup slivered blanched almonds; 12 black peppercorns; ½ cup walnuts or pecans; ½ to 1 cup lard or vegetable oil; 1 piece (2 inches) true (Ceylon) cinnamon, or 2 teaspoons ground U.S. “cinnamon”; 6 cloves; 2 tablespoons butter or lard; ½ head garlic (about 8 large cloves), unpeeled; ½ cup golden raisins; 4 to 5 cups Caldo de Pollo, or as needed; ¼ pound fresh tomatillos; 1 pound firm ripe, red tomatoes (2 large or 3 to 4 medium-size); 1 large onion, unpeeled; 1 tablet (3 ounces) Mexican chocolate, chopped; 2 tablespoons dried Mexican oregano; 1 large, very ripe plantain, peeled and cut into ½-inch slices; 1 cup pined dried apricots, sliced; 1 cup pitted dried prunes, sliced; 1 to 1½ cups dry sherry, heated; 8 ounces ancho chiles, tops removed; 8 ounces guajlllo chiles, tops removed

Preparation info

About
3 quarts

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Food from My Heart

By Zarela Martínez

Published 1992

About

What a sense of accomplishment I had when I first made the famous mole negro oaxaqueño, the state dish of Oaxaca! This adaptation (with ancho and guajillo chiles substituted for the characteristic chilhuacle negro, unavailable in this country) may not be the most difficult recipe in the entire book, but it’s probably the most difficult-looking. Actually, if you have learned some of the basic techniques, you will see that the different stages of preparation here all make