Molé Negro Oaxaqueno

Gather ingredients.	Roast the peppers.	Pepper seeds, pre-roasting.
Broiled tomatoes, tomatillos.	Grind cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns.	Fry plantain.
Add Ibarra and avocado leaves.	Ain't gonna fit.	Taste. Yum!

Yesterday's big activity was making molé negro Oaxequeno, or Black Molé from Oaxaca. I went to four stores to get all the ingredients, which included chile peppers (chilhuacles, guajillos, pasilla, and mulatos), tomatoes, tomatillos, cloves, allspice, peppercorns, cinnamon, thyme, oregano, marjoram, sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, raisins, a plantain, an onion, corn tortillas, french bread, chicken broth, Ibarra hot chocolate disks, and dried avocado leaves. The chilies need to be sliced open, seeded, and roasted in a pan. After roasting they soften in water for a while. The seeds and spices get roasted as well. This wouldn't be much work except, to do this properly, you need to roast everything individually.

The raisins, plaintain, and onion get fried. Again, individually.

After roasting/frying you would traditionally grind the ingredients together in a mocajete. I don't have a mocajete, and my mortar and pestle are too small for the task. Thus, one by one, everything but the chilies, chocolate, and avocado leaves went into the blender.

The blended mixture went back into the frying pan. While that cooked I blended the soaked, roasted peppers. It soon became obvious that my frying pan was not big enough to hold everything so I broke out the big soup pot. In went the blended stuff. In went the chocolate and avocado leaves. In went the chile peppers. In went the chicken broth. Cook for 30 minutes.

This took almost five hours to make. That includes an email break and a call to my father.

Now I've got about a gallon of molé. I suppose I could cook up some chicken and rice, drown them in the molé and have a delicious meal.

But a gallon of molé is too much for one person. It is much better to share. I'll use the molé as the base for chili, and have a chili party! Doesn't that sound like a better idea?

Comments

[Dirk]

THAT LOOKS SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOODDD!!!!

[Jen]

Where did you find CHILHUACLES CHILES? Thanks!

[joe]

I don't remember exactly which store I bought the chilhuacles from. It was either Kalustyan's at 28th and Lexington (212-685-3451), Kitchen Market at 8th Ave and 21st (212-243-4433), or one of the Mexican markets on 3rd Ave just south of 116th St. in East Harlem. Kitchen Market is expensive.

I'm not familiar with Sunset Park in Brooklyn, but I imagine the Mexican markets there sell chilhuacles.

What are you going to make with them?