Mole de Olla (Mole Cooked in a Pot)

I picked up some pork neck bones on spec at the Asian grocery store a while back. If nothing else, they're great for making sisig. I didn't feel up to making sisig right away, so I dropped them in the freezer and forgot about them for a few months. Then I ran across this mole recipe in a Mexican cookbook that TM had lent me. It sounded interesting and not too difficult to put together, so I figured I'd give it a try.

It calls for ancho and pasilla chiles. I was all out of both, but ordered a few from a local kitchen store. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get them in time, so I ended up substituting poblano and Anaheim chiles respectively. Ancho chiles are just dried poblanos, but while poblanos are normally sold green here, ancho chiles are dried when the pepper reaches its red-ripe stage. So, between the drying process and the extra ripening, they do taste fairly different, but I was hoping it would still be close enough. Pasilla chiles are the dried form of the chilaca chile. I've never seen fresh ones for sale here, nor could I find any of the other dried chiles that I'd normally consider reasonable substitutes: California or guajillo. So I just tossed in a few Anaheim peppers and hoped for the best.

Sadly, I couldn't find the epazote for this dish either. I was especially disappointed by that since it's meant to be one of the key flavours. I added some cilantro and ground fennel seeds to make up for it, but everywhere I looked people kept reiterating that nothing tastes quite like epazote and you can't really replicate it with any of the substitutes. So, if you can find epazote where you live, definitely use it!

Mole de Olla

Slightly adapted from the Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy

Ingredients

• 1.25kg pork neck bones (or "boiling beef" with bone)
• 2L water
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 ancho chiles¹
• 4 pasilla chiles²
• 1 c. chopped tomatillos (tomates verdes)³
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1/8 tsp. cumin seeds
• 3 Tbsp. oil⁴
• 450g zucchini, cut into sticks
• 100g green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise
• 1 cob of corn⁵, cut into 6 pieces
• 250g chayote squash⁶, cored and cut into 5mm wedges
• 250g potatoes, cubed
• 3 sprigs epazote (Mexican tea)⁷

Directions

1. Have the butcher cut the meat and bones into serving pieces.
2. Place the meat and bones in a large pot and add the water and salt.
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until tender (~50 minutes). If using beef, it may need an extra 20-30 minutes of cooking to become tender.
4. Meanwhile, heat a comal, tawa, or similar and toast the chilies well, turning frequently to avoid burning. (If using fresh chilies rather than dried see footnote 1 below.)
5. Allow the chilies to cool, then remove the seeds and veins. DO NOT SOAK.
6. Add the toasted chilies to the blender along with the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and cumin seeds and blend until smooth.
7. Heat the oil over medium heat.
8. Add the sauce from the blender and fry for ~5 minutes. (Longer if using fresh chilies.)
9. Add the sauce to the meat.
10. When the meat is tender, add the zucchini, beans, corn, chayote, and potatoes and cook slowly, uncovered, until vegetables are cooked through (~30 minutes).
11. Add the epazote in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
12. Adjust seasoning as desired and serve with warm tortillas, lime, and fresh minced onion.

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¹ I used poblanos in place of the anchos in my rendition. I halved and seeded them, then cooked them under the broiler until the flesh was soft and the skin was blistered, then tossed them in a plastic bag to rest/steam for ~15 minutes, then peeled the skins off and added flesh to the blender. ^Back
2 As I didn't have pasillas either, I swapped in some Anaheim chiles. I gave them the same treatment as the poblanos above. ^Back
3 The recipe calls for "1 cup tomates verdes, drained". To me this implies that the author is expecting you to bo using some sort of canned or preserved tomatillos. I ended up just getting a pint of fresh tomatillos and using those. If you can't find either fresh or canned tomatillos, I think that a jar of salsa verde would make a reasonable substitute. It'll have some spices and other things added to it, but I think it would be fine in this application. ^Back
4 The recipe calls for peanut or safflower oil. I think any neutral oil would work. I also think that lard or bacon fat would work well if doing the pork neck bone version of this recipe. I didn't get this recipe written up right away, so I can't remember which fat I ended up going with, but I think I probably went the bacon fat route since we have a bunch of that that we've been trying to use up. ^Back
5 It's best if you can use the corn on the cob, but if you don't have any on hand, a cup of frozen corn will do in a pinch. ^Back
6 Kholrabi makes a decent substitute for chayote if you can't find the squash. ^Back
7 Everyone seems to agree that there really is no substitute for epazote. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any, so I added ~1/2 c. of chopped fresh cilantro and 1/2 tsp. ground fennel seeds at the end of cooking to try to make up for it. I'm sure it wasn't the same, but it still tasted good. ^Back