Holy Mole

[ED]

Mole (sauce)

see more frome chefed at chefedccp.com

Mole (MOH-leh,ˈmo.le/) (Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl mulli or molli, "sauce") is the generic name for several sauces used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces. In addition, it is also a way of designating a dish most of the rest of the world would consider a soup. In English, it often refers to a specific sauce which is known in Spanish by the more specific name mole poblano. The word is also widely known in the combined form guacamole (avocado mole).

In contemporary Mexico, the term is used for a number of sauces, some quite dissimilar to each other. The most popular kinds come from the Mexican states of Puebla and Oaxaca, and there is an annual national mole fair in the town of San Pedro Atocpan in the Milpa Alta borough of Mexico's Federal District, on the southern outskirts of Mexico City.

Mole poblano, whose name comes from the Mexican state of Puebla, is a popular sauce in Mexican cuisine and is the mole that most people in the U.S. think of when they think of mole. Various stories exist about its invention, but none are generally accepted. One version holds that the recipe was refined by the nuns of the Order of Santa Clara to impress visiting political and church officials in Mexico in the 17th century. Another is that the nuns simply collected mole recipes from the local indigenous people and presented one of them.

Mole poblano is prepared with dried chile peppers (commonly ancho, pasilla, mulato and chipotle), ground nuts (almonds or indigenous peanuts), spices, Mexican chocolate (cacao ground with sugar and cinnamon), salt, and a variety of other ingredients including charred avocado leaves.