Mole

“Mexican food is far more varied than people think. If you travel 50 kilometers it is completely different.”

— Gael Garcia Bernal

If there’s a poster child for Oaxacan cuisine, it’s mole (moh-lay)—especially the thick, dark-brown mole negro that appears on menus in Mexican restaurants around the world. 

But what exactly is mole? Put simply, mole is sauce—or rather, an extremely broad range of sauce preparations involving dozens of ingredients that, depending on the combinations used, result in a rainbow of colors, flavors, and varying degrees of spiciness. To say “I love mole” is a bit like saying “I love wine”—it gets you into the right neighborhood, but to locate the right house you’re going to need a more specific address.

Mole derives its name from one aspect of its preparation that differentiates it from other types of Mexican sauces: the huge assortment of herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, chiles, and, in some cases, chocolate must be thoroughly ground up (in Spanish, molido) prior to cooking. This is typically accomplished at a molino, or grinding shop, often located near a neighborhood mercado where the myriad ingredients are first obtained.

A molino, or grinding shop for herbs and spices, located close to a neighborhood mercado.

Once ground, the ingredients are then simmered in broth, enhanced with additional ingredients (tomatoes, onions, garlic, etc.), blended to a smooth consistency and then cooked some more. Depending on your taste, various types of meat, poultry or seafood can be prepared on the side and then plated with a pool of the mole, or even added to the saucepan for a few minutes to pick up some of its rich flavor, before being served with rice, beans, or vegetables and—always—tortillas. 

The heat of a mole is determined primarily by the choice of chiles to be used. There are dozens of different types of chiles, both fresh and dried, in the mercados of Oaxaca; for local cooks they are like old friends, well-known for their distinctive colors, personalities and flavor profiles. For people like me, however, the choice of chile is best approached with extreme caution, as many of them are infernally hot. In most moles, the chiles are first fried, soaked in water, or dry-roasted before being ground up and combined with other ingredients. Often, the capsaicin-bearing seeds and ribs of the chile are removed before it is prepared—which helps reduce some of the heat.

Some of the dozens of varieties of chiles available to local cooks in the mercados of Oaxaca.

The guidebooks refer to the Seven Moles of Oaxaca, a distinction largely unrecognized in the United States. Here’s one “official” list (there are many), ranked from lightest to darkest:

1.     Mole Amarillo. A mild, savory mole that is more light-brown in color than yellow, served with pretty much any kind of meat and fish, and often stuffed into tamales and empanadas as a filling.   

2.     Mole Verde. One of the mildest moles, this green sauce gets its fresh color and flavor from one or more green plants found in abundance in Oaxaca—especially hierba santa, but also cilantro and epazote, another important local herb. 

3.     Mole Manchamanteles. Mancha means stain; a mantel is a tablecloth. Put them together and you get the idea: don’t lay out your finest table linens when dishing up this brightly-colored mole. Often served with pork, it has a wonderfully fruity character balanced by medium spiciness.

4.     Mole Coloradito. “Little Red” is a somewhat lighter version of mole rojo—meaning fewer ingredients—but still delivers the rich flavors of fried or roasted chiles in a savory sauce.

5.     Mole Rojo. A deep red-brown mole that ups the complexity and robustness another notch from coloradito. The state of Puebla lays claim to this as their invention (calling it mole poblano), but here it is understood to be a Oaxacan original.

6.     Mole Negro. Oaxaca’s most famous dish. Made with lots of dark Oaxacan chocolate, when prepared properly you can identify nearly each one of its dozens of ingredients swimming in a luxurious flavor bath. It is a favorite for seasonal meals of celebration, and is also used as a filling for tamales and, occasionally, tacos. 

7.     Mole Chichilo. As dark as mole negro, chichilo contains no chocolate, but gets its near-black color from fire-roasting the seeds of the chilhuacle negro and mulato chiles on a tortilla and then grinding them into a powder. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s not that hot—just memorably warm, smooth and rich.

Obviously, the flavors of any mole—along with its consistency, color and heat—are determined entirely by the ingredients which the cocinero/a chooses to include. So while these seven are considered the most common moles originating in Oaxaca, there are also endless variations on them, depending on each family’s distinctive take on it.

Plus, according to most chefs, this list is far too simplistic and should include any number of other moles for which Oaxaca is well-known, including Almendrado (almonds), Alcaparrado (capers), Chicatana (flying ants), Pipian (pumpkin seeds) and many more. And then there are the molitos—with a texture somewhere between a mole and a soup, these are thinner preparations with numerous regional variations that include such ingredients as flor de calabaza (squash blossom) or camaron (shrimp).

Some of these moles—including amarillo, verde and chichilo—pre-date the Spanish Conquest and are traditionally made using only native ingredients. Once the Spanish arrived, bringing with them the spices and herbs they had encountered in Asia, the lid was blown off the pot, figuratively and perhaps literally, and the inventiveness that characterizes modern moles really took off.

A trio of moles, from left to right: Mole Manchamanteles with Stuffed Chile, Mole Amarillo with Chicken, and Mole Acaparrado with Dorado. (From the kitchen of Oscar Carrizosa.)

Creating the more complex moles from scratch can take hours, even days. Fortunately for short-order cooks like me, many of them are also available as pre-cooked pastes (mole pasta) that can be purchased in virtually every kind of store in Oaxaca. Many restaurants also sell their own pastes as a take-out option. Moles made from paste can be surprisingly good, and they’re incredibly easy to fix: simply add chicken or vegetable broth (and sometimes tomato puree), heat, stir, and you’re ready to add whatever meat, vegetables and garnishes suit your fancy and the mole in question. 

Mole pastes of all kinds are available for purchase at the local mercado—the quick and easy way to make mole at home!

My favorite mole? That’s a bit like asking which is my favorite color—take any one of them away and the world is a lesser place. I have gone through different phases of preference on this (lately falling in love with chichilo and manchamanteles), but in the end, the best mole is usually the one that I’m eating right now.

Sometimes the simplest is the best: mole negro con pollo served up for lunch at a tiny neighborhood restaurant.

Many thanks to chef Oscar Carrizosa for his help in preparing this post! Oscar owns a restaurant and cooking school called Casa Crespo in the city of Oaxaca de Juárez. See www.casacrespo.com for more information.