Oaxacan Red Mole
Truly Mexican: Essential Recipes and Techniques for Authentic Mexican Cooking by Roberto Santibañez is my Mexican cooking bible.
Last night I pulled it out for the first time in awhile and decided to go with one of the less complex moles—I still allowed a good two hours to complete the dish (and started the dried pinto beans an hour before that).
The mole is composed of toasted and then rehydrated ancho and guajillo peppers, roasted and blackened tomatoes and garlic, a toasted baguette to thicken (I used a brioche bun since that’s what I had), and a mixture of peppercorns, cinnamon, Mexican oregano and marjoram.
The ingredients are combined in a blender, with a little of the reserved water from rehydrating the peppers, and then sautéed in a little oil until thickened, followed by thinning it with a little broth until the texture is nice and silky.
I let it simmer while I browned up some pork and then spooned enough over to coat the pork, but not make it overly wet as I wanted to serve it as tacos.
This made enough mole to save three one-cup servings in the freezer for later use.
I served it on flour tortillas because I was too lazy to heat up corn (flour you can just zap in the microwave) with pinto beans made like my mother-in-law (who is from the Texas hill country) does, covered with water with some crushed garlic, brought to a boil and then cooked at a steady simmer until tender, adding a little water occasionally if necessary. Salt to taste added toward the end of the cooking time.
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