Mole Negro With Chicken and Pork
"This sauce recipe from the Chicago Tribune is adapted from Petra Gutierrez de Romero, whose family operates a stall in La Merced market, selling chilies and other dried goods. She has worked in the market for 30 years, and also worked as a cook for 17 years. Serve this with warm tortillas. If you can't find all the varieties of the chiles, then use what you have but it is wonderful how much more available various dried chiles are than they were in the past.
This is labor intensive, but it will be a labor of love--the dish is truly worth the effort."
- Ready In:
- 4hrs 30mins
- Ingredients:
- 19
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 1⁄4 cup sesame seeds
- 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 (2 1/2-3 lb) roasting chickens, cut into pieces
- 2 lbs country-style pork ribs, trimmed, separated
- 1 small plantain, ripe, peeled, chopped
- 1⁄4 cup peanuts, chopped
- 1⁄4 cup almonds, chopped
- 1⁄4 cup raisins
- 1⁄4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 small corn tortilla
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 4 maria cookies (or vanilla wafers)
- 1 concha-style bread or 1 other yeast roll
- 2 tablespoons mexican chocolate, chopped
- 1 teaspoon pine nuts, ground
- 4 -8 dried ancho chiles
- 2 -4 dried mulato chiles
- 1 -2 dried pasilla pepper
directions
- Heat a large dry skillet over low heat; cook the sesame seeds until they are fragrant, about 3 minutes; transfer to a small bowl, cover and set aside.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in the skillet over medium-high heat; add the chicken. Cook, turning chicken occasionally, until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side; transfer to a platter.
- Add pork ribs to the skillet; cook, turning, until ribs are browned, about 3 minutes each side, and transfer to the platter.
- Add 3 tablespoons of the oil to the skillet. Add plantains; cook, turning often, until golden, about 3 minutes.
- Transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl; set aside.
- Repeat process, separately cooking the peanuts, almonds, raisins and brown sugar, adding a bit more oil as needed.
- Stir mixture together.
- Puree half of the mixture in a blender with 1/2 cup of the broth.
- Pour through a strainer; reserve liquid. Repeat with the remaining half of the mixture in a blender and 1/2 cup of the chicken broth.
- Pour through a strainer; reserve liquid and set aside.
- Process tortilla, cinnamon stick, cookies, roll, chocolate and pine nuts together in the clean blender until crumbly; set aside.
- Heat a small skillet over medium-high heat; add the ancho chilies.
- Cook, stirring, until very fragrant, about 2 minutes; transfer to a medium bowl.
- Repeat with mulatto and pasilla chilies. Pour boiling water over cooked chilies to cover; set aside 30 minutes.
- After they have soaked. puree in a blender and then pour through a strainer into a Dutch oven; discard solids.
- Add remaining 2 cups of chicken broth to the Dutch oven.
- Heat mixture to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to a simmer.
- Add the chicken, pork, plaintain-nut mixture, and tortilla mixture to the Dutch oven; cook until pork is tender, about 2 hours.
- Set aside to cool, about 20 minutes.
- Remove meat; shred meat with a fork.
- Stir shredded meat into the sauce; pour into a serving bowl or platter.
- Decorate with reserved sesame seeds.
Questions & Replies
Got a question?
Share it with the community!
Reviews
-
I made this mole for my mother on her birthday, and she said it was the richest and tastiest mole she had ever had. Everyone licked their plates clean! It was a tedious and labor-ful job but sooo worth every second!!
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Chef Kate
Annapolis, 60
<p>I have always loved to cook. When I was little, I cooked with my Grandmother who had endless patience and extraordinary skill as a baker. And I cooked with my Mother, who had a set repertoire, but taught me many basics. Then I spent a summer with a French cousin who opened up a whole new world of cooking. And I grew up in New York City, which meant that I was surrounded by all varieties of wonderful food, from great bagels and white fish to all the wonders of Chinatown and Little Italy, from German to Spanish to Mexican to Puerto Rican to Cuban, not to mention Cuban-Chinese. And my parents loved good food, so I grew up eating things like roasted peppers, anchovies, cheeses, charcuterie, as well as burgers and the like. In my own cooking I try to use organics as much as possible; I never use canned soup or cake mix and, other than a cheese steak if I'm in Philly or pizza by the slice in New York, I don't eat fast food. So, while I think I eat and cook just about everything, I do have friends who think I'm picky--just because the only thing I've ever had from McDonald's is a diet Coke (and maybe a frie or two). I have collected literally hundreds of recipes, clipped from the Times or magazines, copied down from friends, cajoled out of restaurant chefs. Little by little, I am pulling out the ones I've made and loved and posting them here. Maybe someday, every drawer in my apartment won't crammed with recipes. (Of course, I'll always have those shelves crammed with cookbooks.) I'm still amazed and delighted by the friendliness and the incredible knowledge of the people here. 'Zaar has been a wonderful discovery for me.</p>
