Winter temperatures and punishing winds on a spring day when the bright sunlight turned the neighborhood into a reverse-autumnal landscape of reds, yellows, whites. Dinner was roasted chicken with mole coloradito. It’s one of the traditional moles of Oaxaca and one of the easiest to make, and unlike many of the others, it doesn’t call for green tomatoes or tomatillos, which can be hard to obtain. A mole is a fluid idea which can be reduced or thickened at will, whether you need it to be a salsa, a broth for a soup, or a braise for a stew. Sometimes I cut the chicken into pieces and use the mole as a cooking liquid, as if I’m making chili, but the cooking fat from the chicken tends to diminish the flavor of the sauce, so I think I prefer what I did tonight, which was to brine and roast the chicken separately and prepare the mole on the side.
To make mole coloradito, start with four ancho chiles and four guajillo chiles. Rinse them, then griddle-dry them on a hot cast-iron skillet for 30 seconds or so. Soak the chiles in hot water for at least 20 minutes. (My brother-in-law, who lived in Austin for a while, makes a habit of soaking chiles for hours to really bring out their flavors.) Then grate or chop three ounces of chocolate and set it aside; some kind of Mexican chocolate would be best, but I just used 60% bittersweet chocolate from a regular grocery store. Mince half an onion, six garlic, three tomatoes or the equivalent amount of canned tomato, and one-third of a plantain (except I used a banana: crazy!). Roast ¾ cup almonds and grind them in a food processor or spice grinder (it’s important to get the almonds very fine so you will have a smooth sauce), and mix the almonds with five ground peppercorns, five ground cloves, and two inches of canela. Then you cook the sauce: Toast four tablespoons of sesame seeds on the stove, then add the almond and spice mixture, the vegetables, a generous amount of thyme, a pinch of dried oregano, and ¼ cup of raisins. After cooking it down for a bit, transfer everything to a blender or food processor, add the chiles, and puree. (Or do it the old-fashioned way by using a mortar, but good luck with that.) Cook the pureed sauce on the stove for around 20 minutes, until the chiles lose their astringent taste. Then add the chocolate and cook about 10 minutes more, adding bread crumbs and chicken broth as desired to thicken or liquefy the sauce. Salt to taste. The recipe is adapted from The Food and Life of Oaxaca by Zarela Martínez.
(Photo: Market in Zaachila, state of Oaxaca, Mexico.)
365 Days of Food 