That’s right – we’re making one of the most complicated sauces in all of global cuisine, black Mole.<\/p>\n
Step 1 – roast the chiles.\u00a0 Wait – it’s the dead of winter!\u00a0 How can we grill…<\/p>\n
…oh wait, we live in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Honestly, this is still probably the\u00a0 step we did the least well.\u00a0 Martinez’s recipe (I had to look up how to properly punctuate that) stresses carbonizing the peppers on the grill and then washing and rehydrating them to remove the burnt flavor, but comments I’ve read since then disagree with this approach, and suggest it would have been better to pull them off a little sooner in the first place.<\/p>\n Before:<\/p>\n After:<\/p>\n These were then washed and then left to soak in boiling water for an hour, which was intended to remove as many of the acrid notes as possible.\u00a0 While the grill was still hot, we tossed on half a ripe plantain, which, hilariously, attempted to escape from its skin over the course of 20 minutes.<\/p>\n OK, what other prep do we need to do?\u00a0 We need to blacken our veg.\u00a0 I did this on a cast iron skillet, as instructed, but in future I might just haul out the blowtorch.<\/p>\n The only other prep is to put all the ingredients in bowls so we can add them in the right sequence for the next steps.<\/p>\n First up, melt the lard.\u00a0 Then in with the almonds, peanuts, cinnamon, cloves, anise, allspice, peppercorns, and pumpkin seeds.<\/p>\n Next, raisins, sesame seeds, cumin, thyme, oregano, and bay leaves.<\/p>\n Once those have had a chance to toast a bit, in with almost everything else: chiles, plantain, veg, tortillas (yes, straight into the sauce), stock, and salt.<\/p>\n This gets simmered for an hour or so, then the whole mess goes into the food processor.<\/p>\n Once it’s all blended, you transfer it BACK to the pot with some more lard and then cook it for another ten minutes. When it’s finished, you turn off the heat and then stir in the chocolate.<\/p>\n And that’s it!\u00a0 A bit gritty, since we weren’t using an honest to god blender, but the color is beautiful.<\/p>\n None of the recipes for this dish pay the slightest attention to the chicken.\u00a0 “Serve over chicken” is how it’s usually described.\u00a0 So given that, we just got a rotisserie chicken from the neighborhood grocery store.\u00a0 A little rice and beans, a bag of corn tortillas, some Mexican beer, and here’s the final spread:<\/p>\n Pretty, innit?<\/p>\n In terms of flavor, it’s obvious what the GOAL was.\u00a0 You could definitely taste the rich complexity of the sauce.\u00a0 But… I think we did burn the chiles a bit too much.\u00a0 I see the approach this recipe was going for, but I think I would have preferred having a bit less burned flavor to try to wash back out.\u00a0 Still – this sauce is a BEAR, and I’m proud of us for even attempting it.<\/p>\n Next up, Jalisco! Home of tequila!<\/p>\n And probably also food, we’ll have to look into that.<\/p>\n Recipe: By my count, this should be about our 110th country, give or take. I don’t have an exact count for a few reasons.\u00a0 We didn’t start this blog until “Bosnia,” although at some point I will go back and transfer … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20260103_153548-rotated.jpg\")
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\nNote that the blackened skin on the left is empty – it contained the roasted plantain on the right when we started.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nNeed to toast a couple of corn tortillas, too.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/cooking.nytimes.com\/recipes\/1023509-mole-negro<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"