The whole afternoon
240 minutes · serves 8 · Hard
What you need
- 6 ancho, 4 pasilla and 4 mulato chillies
- 80g almonds
- 60g raisins
- 50g sesame seeds
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 corn tortilla
- 1 slice stale bread
- 60g dark chocolate
- 1 cinnamon stick
- Cloves and aniseed
- 1.5L chicken stock
- 1 chicken, jointed
What you do
- 1Toast every chilli briefly on a dry pan until fragrant, then soak them in hot water 30 minutes. Toast, do not burn — burnt chilli makes the whole pot bitter and there is no rescue.
- 2Separately fry the nuts, raisins, sesame, tomato, onion, garlic, tortilla and bread until each is browned, then blitz the lot with the soaked chillies and some stock into a thick paste.
- 3Push it through a sieve. This is tedious and it is what separates mole from chilli paste.
- 4Fry the sieved paste in lard or oil in a deep pot for 20 minutes, stirring, until it darkens and thickens.
- 5Stock, spices and chocolate in, then two hours on the lowest heat, stirring often. Poached chicken in for the last 20 minutes, sesame over the top.