A huge welcome to Steve's kitchen, strap yourself in, this is going to be a long
one. I thought about condensing this down to a simple Mole recipe but I'm a
little bit too passionate, so I'm going to get into it in depth. We're going to
be looking at Mole from a foreigners perspective, obviously, so I'd appreciate
any feedback from my Mexican friends out there because I know you know a lot more
about this than I do but I learned a lot when we're in Mexico and if you remember
a couple of weeks ago we did the Nixtamilised corn which I think is one of
the most important elements in Mexican cooking. If masa is the sort
of flesh of Mexican cooking then definitely Mole is the blood that runs
through that. Before we start today's video recipe I'm going to fast forward to
the end of the day, we've had our Mole simmering on the side. I'm super
impressed, really proud of what's come out. It smells delicious, it tastes
absolutely gorgeous, I've had a little taste
but we put up a couple of pieces of chicken in the Mole to cook it off and
before I start with today's video I just want to show you how gorgeous this Mole
has come out and I can tell you now I'm a little proud of this. iI takes me right
back to Oaxaca, this is not a bad Mole. I'm going to tuck in and then we're going to
talk more about Mole and Mexican food.
You're going to find Mole running throughout all of Mexican food and
cuisine, it is so complex and so delicious. If you ask 100 Mexican chefs
or cooks how to make Mole, you'll get 100 different recipes. If you ask a home
cook or mama how she makes her Mole, it will vary through the year, depending on
availability of different produce. Of course chilies are really important.
We're not talking about spicy chilies, we're talking about sweet chilies. I mean
these are some anchos, I've got some smoked Chipotle here, if I smell those
I'm getting sort of dates, sweet raisins. We've got a woody smokey thing coming
off of this Chipotle. I've got four or five different varieties of chilies
we're going to be using for this recipe and I'm actually going to be making one of
the most complex Mole's of all, black Mole or a Mole Negro. I saw this made so
many times when we were in Oaxaca and every time they told me it's really
complex, so many different ingredients. I'm going to try and recreate it for you
here today in a modest kitchen in Australia and I hope if anything you
come away with an idea how Mole is made. You don't have to copy this particular
recipe but you'll get to understand how Mole is made, you'll be able to have a
play and experiment with it at home. So right now I'm going to get on, I was
actually going to do this on a flat griddle similar to the Comel's they use
in Mexico but we did it yesterday, there's a lot of smoke involved, it gets
really sort of sooty in here. So I decided we're going to simplify this
so it can be made in pretty much any modern kitchen. We're going to do a lot of
the baking in the oven, a little bit of stovetop cooking, come on let's get on
and make Mole Negro. Now I've got a variety of chilies here, why did I choose
them? Well no real reason. I got some Cascabel here, they've got a really sort of
peppery smell. I just basically chose what I liked.
We've got the smoked Chipotle here, got the Ancho's, as I say they've got a sort of
sweet raisiny sort of smell. Talk about sweet,
these ones are almost like a sort of plum, almost they're lovely smelling
chillies by the name of Mulato. These Morita, they look like a dried prune and
they actually have a sort of peppery, sort of pruney smell to them, really
delicious. What we have to do to start with, is start to de-seed these. So we're
just going to break open all of our chilies. Now we're not going to be
getting rid of the seeds by the way, take all your seeds, put them onto a tray. Same
with these Cascabels, I'm going to take the stems out, I don't want the stalks.
I'm not going to bother keeping the stalks but I'm keeping all the veins and
the seeds. Now once we've separated out the seeds and the veins of our chilies
I want to lay them out on a baking tray and normally this would be done on
the comel ,we'd be toasting these off but I'm going to put this in a hot oven
about 400 degrees Fahrenheit that's 200 Celsius and we're going to cook these
for maybe sort of 20 minutes or so until they're really crispy and dark and of
course underneath we are not getting rid of all these lovely veins and seeds.We
are going to be having a little bit of a bonfire with
these later on, you'll see what I mean. Now whilst the oven is nice and hot,
we're going to use that to our advantage. I've got some tomatoes, onions and garlic
and we're just going to pop those on the tray as well and I'm going to put those in
the oven also. I really want them to roast dark, so I don't mind even if they
start to burn a little bit. Now I'm also going to put some fresh oregano on there
as well, this is going to infuse great flavor but it's also going to roast in
the oven with the vegetables. Next up I'm going to take our spices and our nuts.
I'm going to roast them on the stove top in the pan. I'm starting with some cumin,
I've got some allspice, I would have liked some fresh cinnamon and star anise
but I've only got powdered, so I'm going to use that. I'm also going to be toasting
peanuts and almonds together. Now we've put this onto a stove and we'll just
sort of stir them around over a medium heat until they get a nice sort of
toasty Brown. Now a word of warning the other day we did this on the griddle, I
thought it got a bit too smoky but even doing this in the oven you want a well
vented room. I mean we're in middle of summer, I've got all the windows open but
it's still getting to the back of our throat. My chilies have gotten nice and
crisp now, so I'm going to take them out of the oven.
Well this smell is actually making my eyes water but you can see the chilies
are lovely and crisp now, they've lost all of that sort of leathery softness
they had before and that's exactly what I'm looking for. So what I'm going to do is
just going to sort of crush these up a little bit, they're almost like powder
now, into a bowl, that's beautiful and be careful you don't breathe too much of
this in. The smoked Chipotle's even crispier and then what I'm going to do
is take some chicken stock and I'm going to just cover over these chilies. So
probably about a cup, cup and a half of chicken stock and we're just going to
leave those to soak for the time being. Traditionally Mole has a sort of plantain
type banana, which I couldn't get, these were lovely and green yesterday, they've
started to ripen up already, they were a sour banana and I'm going to slice these
up and put them into some rendered pork fat or
some lard. We're then going to fry our bananas or plantains until they get a
little bit of color in them. For a little extra sweetness I'm also going to put
1/2 a cup of raisins in there or sultanas, either will do. At this point it
gets interesting, again I've seen people putting saltine crackers in, I'm just
going to use some stale ciabatta style bread that I've got here. You could
actually use leftover tortillas, it's really just using up stale bread. So
we're going to add that in now with our bananas. So I'm cooking the plantains, the
raisins and the bread to get this lovely caramelized, toasty surface on them and
they're packed full of the flavor of the pork lard.
We've pretty much got all the components of our Mole prepared now and it's time
to put this together. Now I wish I had one of those beautiful mortar and pestle
that they sold in Mexico but they weighed a ton and I couldn't bring it
back with me but I do have a super modern food blender, which is going to do
the job for us just as well. So we're taking the plantains, the bread, the
raisins, all that lovely pork fat into our blender, along with our toasted nuts
and all our spices. I'm going to add a little more chicken stock in with that
just to help it blend. Switch the blender on, pop the lid on nice and tight and we
just want to blitz this to a nice smooth paste. Now I've added a little more stock,
we've got something that's like a really thick creamy peanut butter in here. Let me
just get the lid off, there's a little bit of heat coming out, still nice and
hot. At this point I urge you to give this a try, even this half Finished Mole
wow it is so delicious. Yum! What I'm going to do now is take this and put it back in
the pan, with a little extra lard and we're going to start cooking this up and
add the rest of the ingredients.
Remember our Chili's, they smell so good, just take a look at these, they've been
soaking in that beautiful chicken broth. There's no real need to clean that
blender out, we're just going to pour these straight in the blender, a little
extra chicken stock in there as well and now we're just going to blend this until
they're really smooth. So it wants to go for quite a long time but be prepared to be
assaulted with your senses, the smell coming out of here is going to be delicious.
Now the ladies of Oaxaca, they used those big mortar and pestle and they really
diligently put lots of love into getting this as smooth as possible. So you need
to blend this for a good 5 minutes to get most of the texture out of those
chilies but leave all the flavor in there. Now we haven't forgot our tomatoes,
onion and garlic and of course the Oregano, which was roasting in the oven.
The onions are toasted, I am going to just remove the outer skins because
that'll be a little bit tough. Now see how crispy the Oregano is, I'm actually
going to pull out most of the stalks but with the tomatoes I'm actually going to
leave the skins on. I'm not worried about some of the texture staying in. So we've
got our four pieces of tomatoes there, let's push this all in to the center. So
we've got this rich, look at this beautiful dark chili Mole sauce. I'm
going to add my onions, tomatoes, little bits of garlic, everything's going into the
sauce. Lid back on and I'm just going to blitz this again for about 3 minutes,
just to break down the vegetables. Now that's been going for about 3 minutes, I
reckon that's done but just to be safe rather than pour this straight into the
pan, which you could do by the way, no problem at all, I'm just going to run it
through a sieve quickly to get any larger lumps out or bits a stalk or
anything I might have left. Now look at that, all the smoked flavors, all the sort
of nutty fruitnesses that come with that chili, are in there now. We're just
going to mix this through. Now as I say the air is stinging the back of my
throat but the smell in here is just gorgeous. I mean you really have to be here,
it's so intense, so delicious. Now you remember all the seeds and the stalks
that I kept, I put them into a small frying pan. This
I am going to do outdoors though because we're not going to just toast these until
they're dark brown, I literally want to almost burn these. I don't even mind if
the little flame comes up because we're going to make these into almost a
charcoal and that's where you get that intense color for the Mole Negro. Mole
making, particularly Mole Negro is not for the faint-hearted, do be careful when
you're cooking this. You're basically making a chili charcoal and the fumes
coming off are pretty noxious, this really has to be done outside. We want to
get the blackness and the flavoring out of this. Now this is going into our
blender, we're going to add a little more chicken stock, just to help break down
the carbon and we're going to blend this up now to get all that beautiful blackness
out of here. Man that looks like squid ink it's so dark. Now you could sieve this,
some people do, when I've seen it made in Oaxaca they just put this straight into
the Mole and I think that's what I'm going to do. Look at that, we've got that lovely
dark inky mixture and now the piece that we all love, I've got this beautiful
bitter Mexican chocolate. Rich and dark just like the Mole. I'm going to add the
whole block in there and just let the heat of the Mole melt it down. The last
thing I am going to do is add about a teaspoon, teaspoon and a half, there is no
real seasoning in this at the moment by way of salt, so I'm going to add a little
salt in there to develop the flavors. We are so near the finish line. Now that has
to simmer away for several hours, the longer you can cook that or simmer it
for, the better, the flavors will develop. Now traditionally in Oaxaca I saw they
would put a little bit of chicken in with the actual Mole as well and serve
that as a treat at the end of the session. I'm going to put a couple of pieces
of chicken breast in and Michele and I will have those as a treat a little bit later
on today. Now that's one big batch of Mole which
I'm really pleased with, this will store for absolutely ages in the fridge. You
can actually freeze Mole as well if you like, we're going to be using it for some
great recipes coming up on Steve's kitchen. I'm going to wait for that to come
off of the simmer, enjoy a little bit of chicken, enjoy some Mole.
So we've come full-circle from the beginning of the video to the end and as
I say we let that simmer away on the stove for a good three to four hours and
it's just getting richer and richer in flavor. I'm really proud it's come out so
so good, the flavors are really complex. If you haven't had Mole like this
before you really should, I mean you've got that sort of dark, rich sweetness.
There's some chili kick in there, it's like chocolate, there's that sort of
smoky aroma and it's, it's really just hard to explain. Mole is not really a
food, it's almost an alchemy. Have some fun, let me know what you think about
this and get the the chats going down in the comments and I'm going to close this
off now with another mouthful of this delicious Oaxacan style Mole Negro
Cheers!