When people ask us why we came to Oaxaca we say “the food” (and okay, maybe mezcal). And when we think of Oaxacan food, we think of mole (moh-lay). Mole is a rich family of sauces from the complex mole negro (black) which requires hours of preparation and acquiring ingredients to the simple mole amarillo that is basically a spicy and earthy tomato sauce. In Oaxaca, you can eat mole at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Breakfast – Breakfast is a light meal eaten around 10AM – usually from street vendors or market stalls. Mole isn’t a big breakfast item, but you can get tamales with mole negro, mole coloradito, or mole amarillo.
Lunch – This is the largest meal of the day – eaten around 3-4PM often as 3 or more courses. Chicken with mole is a staple. Market lunch counters serve it as one large course and it may be lukewarm, but it still tastes good. Small family-run restaurants may just list it as “Beef with potatoes” and smother it in mole, served alongside soup, rice, hand-made tortillas, beans, and dessert.
Dinner – After lunch, dinner seems impossible. The dirty secret about mole in Oaxaca is that it’s almost all prepared from pastes. You can buy commercial branded bags or buckets of pastes at their own storefronts. Smaller operations sell unmarked bags at market stalls (as a bonus, they also grind and bag their own custom chocolate). The pastes are decidedly more complex and rich than the jarred mole we can buy in supermarkets at home, but they aren’t nearly as flavorful as the mole made from scratch. However, you can add flavorings to your paste when cooking, and it’s hard to beat the convenience. For a light dinner, usually around 8:30-10, we like to make mole using the paste, though our host José says it’s too heavy for dinner. José also has strong opinions based on years of watching his family prepare mole their way. We didn’t have tomatoes on our first attempt, and José sent Cara out to the store to buy some. Here is how he tells us to make mole negro:
- 5 whole tomatoes
- 1/2 lb of mole paste
- stock, preferably home-made chicken
- a little oil
Simmer the whole tomatoes until their skin begins to crack.
Blend cooked tomatoes with a cup of stock.
Heat oil in a sautee pan then add the blended tomatoes.
Cook until “they taste cooked”, about 15 minutes.
Add mole paste using your spoon to break it up and mix.
Add stock until the consistency is just thick enough to coat a spoon.
Traditionally the chicken used for the stock is then served smothered in mole. We have also made it with vegetable stock and served it over potatoes, and José approved, as much as he can approve of eating mole after 5PM.
Of course, if you don’t want to do that, you can head down to the central park and get tamales with mole from a street vendor for your dinner.
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