Mole Poblano

Simmer the chicken in salted water with a chunk of onion and a garlic clove for 35–40 minutes, until cooked. Lift the meat out and keep 1.5 L of the broth.

💡 This broth is the mole's only liquid, so do not use water later. Every bit of chicken flavour ends up back in the sauce.

Stem and seed all the dried chilies. Tear them open flat and shake the seeds out.

💡 The seeds and veins carry most of the harsh heat and a lot of the bitterness. Leaving them in is the fastest way to a mole nobody finishes.

Fry the chilies in 60 ml of lard over medium heat, a few at a time, for 10–15 seconds a side — just until they puff, turn fragrant and change colour slightly. Lift them into a bowl of hot broth to soak.

💡 Ten seconds too long and the chili turns black and bitter, and that bitterness cannot be removed from the finished mole. Work in small batches and watch them constantly — this is the step that decides everything.

Leave the chilies to soak in the hot broth for 30 minutes, pressing them under with a plate so they all stay submerged.

In the same fat, fry each remaining ingredient separately and lift each out as it is done: almonds and peanuts until golden (3–4 minutes), sesame seeds until they dance and pale-gold (1 minute), raisins until they puff (30 seconds), the bread and tortilla until crisp, then the onion and garlic until soft.

💡 Separately is not fussiness. A raisin is done in 30 seconds and an almond needs four minutes — thrown in together, half the pot burns while the other half stays raw.

Toast the cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves and cumin in a dry pan for 30 seconds, until they smell warm, then grind them to a powder.

Char the tomatoes and tomatillos in a dry pan over high heat for 6–8 minutes, turning, until blackened in patches and collapsing.

Blend the soaked chilies with just enough broth to move, until completely smooth — at least 3 minutes. Push the purée through a sieve and discard the skins left behind.

💡 Sieving is the difference between a velvet mole and a gritty one. Chili skins never break down completely, however long you blend.

Blend all the fried ingredients — nuts, seeds, raisins, bread, tortilla, onion, garlic — with the charred tomatoes, tomatillos and ground spices, adding broth until it moves. Sieve this too.

Heat the remaining 60 ml of lard in a wide, heavy pot until it shimmers. Pour in the chili purée all at once — it will spit hard — and fry it, stirring, for 10 minutes.

💡 This is 'freír el mole' and it is the step that separates mole from a blended sauce. Frying the purée cooks out the raw chili taste and deepens the colour. Use a splatter guard and long sleeves — it genuinely spits.

Stir in the nut-and-seed purée and keep frying for 10 minutes more, stirring constantly as it thickens and darkens.

Pour in 800 ml of the reserved broth, drop in the chocolate, and stir until it melts.

Simmer on low for 45–60 minutes, stirring every few minutes and scraping the bottom, until the mole coats a spoon thickly and a slick of red oil rises to the surface.

💡 That rising oil is the classic sign that the mole is ready — Mexican cooks watch for it. It also sticks and scorches the instant you stop stirring, so do not wander off.

Taste and adjust: salt first, then sugar only if the chilies left any bitterness. Loosen with more broth if it has gone past coating-thick.

💡 Mole is not meant to taste of chocolate. 45 g in this whole pot is a background note that rounds the chilies off — if you can identify it as chocolate, there is too much.

Slide the chicken into the mole and warm it through for 10 minutes. Serve with the reserved sesame seeds scattered over, with rice and warm tortillas.