The sauce most people picture
When people outside Mexico imagine mole, they usually picture mole poblano: a deep brown, glossy sauce made from dried chiles, nuts, seeds, spices and a little chocolate, served over turkey or chicken and finished with sesame seeds. It is closely associated with the state and city of Puebla and is often described as a festive dish, served at celebrations, family gatherings and religious feasts. It is also commonly associated with Mexican national identity, although mole itself is a broad family, as the pillar article on understanding mole explains.
Typical ingredients
There is no single official recipe, and households and cooks keep their own versions. Lists often run to twenty or more ingredients. The main groups are usually as follows.
- Chiles: most versions use a mix of dried chiles such as ancho, mulato and pasilla, sometimes with others. Together they supply color, body and a range from fruity to smoky. The general background on dried chiles appears in the article on Mexican chilies.
- Nuts and seeds: almonds, peanuts, sesame and pumpkin seeds are common, toasted for depth and used to thicken.
- Fruit: raisins are typical, and some cooks add plantain or other dried fruit for sweetness.
- Thickener: fried bread, tortilla or crackers help give body.
- Spices: cinnamon, clove, black pepper, anise and coriander seed are frequently mentioned.
- Aromatics: onion, garlic and tomato or tomatillo.
- Chocolate: a small amount, traditionally stone-ground chocolate with sugar and spice, adds bitterness and depth rather than making the sauce sweet.
The sauce is thinned with broth, often from the cooked turkey or chicken. Because the list is long, the work was historically shared among family members and neighbors, and grinding was done on a metate grinder before blenders were common.
How it is made
The steps follow the general mole method. Chiles are seeded, toasted briefly and soaked. Nuts, seeds, spices, fruit and bread are toasted or fried in batches. Everything is ground to a smooth paste, which is then fried in fat until it darkens and thickens before broth is added. The mole simmers, often for a long time, with frequent stirring so that it does not stick or scorch. Finally, it is seasoned with salt and, if needed, a little sugar to balance bitterness.
Cooks commonly note that toasting is the step most easily ruined: seeds and chiles that burn lend a bitter taste that cannot be fixed later. Chiles can also irritate skin, and a hot fry of wet paste splatters, so care is sensible.
The legends
Several stories are told about how mole poblano was invented, and they are typically presented as legend rather than established history.
The best known story involves a convent in Puebla, usually named as Santa Rosa, and a nun, sometimes named as Sor Andrea de la Asuncion. In the tale, the convent learned that an important visitor, often described as a viceroy or archbishop, was about to arrive. Short of food to serve, the nuns gathered whatever was in the kitchen, ground it into a sauce and poured it over a turkey. The visitor loved it, and the dish was born.
Variants change the names, the visitor and even the convent. Other versions credit a monk, or describe the sauce as arising from a mishap such as ingredients accidentally spilling into a pot.
Historians and food writers generally treat these accounts with caution. There does not appear to be reliable documentary evidence connecting them to a specific date or person, and the story is better understood as a part of Puebla’s food folklore. What is more widely accepted is that moles have older roots. Indigenous cooks in Mesoamerica were making sauces from chiles, seeds and other ingredients before the arrival of the Spanish. After the conquest, ingredients from Europe and Asia, such as spices, almonds and sugar, became part of the pantry, and convent kitchens in colonial Mexico, including Puebla’s, were important places where recipes were developed and kept. Mole poblano as it is known now is best seen as the result of gradual blending of those traditions, not a single invention.
Mole poblano and Puebla
Puebla’s wider reputation for convent cooking and local dishes is discussed in the article on Puebla cuisine. Mole poblano also shares the table with other regional specialties, including the festive chiles en nogada. It is often served at weddings, baptisms, birthdays and religious festivals, usually with rice and tortillas. The practice of making large quantities and preparing the paste ahead of time lets cooks serve many guests, and pastes sold at markets are widely used today, though taste and quality vary.
How it differs from other moles
Compared with other moles, mole poblano is typically dark, rich and moderately sweet, with chocolate and nuts in noticeable proportion. Oaxacan styles, by comparison, include moles that are red, yellow, green or black with different balances of ingredients, as covered in the article on the seven moles of Oaxaca. It is more accurate to say that these are different regional expressions of a common idea than to rank them.
A cautious summary
The details most worth remembering are the ones that are well supported: mole poblano is a layered chile-and-nut sauce, usually with a small amount of chocolate, strongly tied to Puebla, and part of a long and varied mole tradition. The convent story is a charming and widely repeated tale, but it should be read as legend. Recipes differ from cook to cook, and none of them is the only right one.