'Ole Mole

i love this title for its versatility. for example:
1) replace ' with "wh" and you get Whole Mole, as in an entire furry creature that plagues gardeners.
2) replace ' with "h" and it's Hole Mole, as in a mole hole.
3) pronounce the single "e" as a double "ee" and get "Holee Molee," which is scarily similar to Holy Moly.
4) pronounce it as a spaniard would and you have "Olay Molay," which is scarily similar to the anglo expression "Holy Moly."

so is this blog about moles the unit of measurement, moles the furry animal, moles the mexican sauces, whole holes, holy wholes, or the annoying cheerleaders of the english language, those perky, flexible, ever-present homonyms?

i'll take "what is the most famous distinguishing mark of puebla, mexico, to an uncultured american-centric oaf like myself?" for $46.78.

if you've never had a great mole poblano, i can now officially pity you, as i have finally had a great one myself. a week ago i could only say that i had disappointing moles, some of which tasted only of chocolate and others that tasted like spiced mud. it is funny to me when people refer to mole poblano as "that mexican chocolate sauce," given that the recipe i attempted called for 6 ounces of chocolate vs 20 dried chiles, 1 lb tomatoes, 1 lb tomatillos, plantains, etc. at the risk of making a completely inappropriate analogy, does having a tiny percentage of chocolate make it a chocolate sauce just as being 1/16 black makes one a "colored person?"

i confess: it was egullet.org, combined with too much time and boredom, that prompted me to tackle this 7 hour recipe. a $46.78 trip to the grocery later, i had all the ingredients i needed plus fresca and diet gingerale for hydration.

the recipe consists of a lot of toasting, poaching, blending (in a food processor), sauteeing. there was only one truly frightening moment: frying the chile puree. commentary had warned, "exploding chiles all over my kitchen! cover well!" this was shortly after i had delved deep into the gumbo archives on egullet and had learned that the roux i'd been making for 5 years or so is also known as "cajun napalm." apparently roux sticks to everything and can burn down to the bone --- as one poster wrote, "as i washed the burn under water my skin came peeling off, then flesh, exposing bone." yowch. in horrified shock, i combined the fear of toxic cajun napalm with the dread of burning hot chile puree and melted into a neurotic mess. this is partly why the process took two days: 1 day prep, 1 night to build up my courage, day 2 storm the fort.

and storm the fort i did. two potholders that went down to my elbow. ratty old tshirt that wouldn't complain if it looked like a bloody battlefield and tasted like a bloody mary (extra hot!) not one, but TWO splashguards. glasses to protect my eyes. long wooden spatula, AND i placed the pot on the back burner, just to be safe. and then pouring the puree....

"BOOM! BAM! whop! FOOM! PSSSSHHH! hisssssssssssssssss! CRUK! FOW! whrrrrrrrrm!"
was how everyone else had described it. but no, my pot went a bit like this: "pssssssssssssssss."

that was it! a sort of disgruntled murmur, and then acquiescence. a deflating balloon. a fish peeing in the sea. dumping the trinity in roux (for gumbo) created more of a fuss. adding cream to caramel was like gettysburg compared to this! WHAT??!!! i felt betrayed by the potency of my chile puree. i wanted a do-over. i wanted to throttle each little ancho, pasilla, and guajillo pepper and cry, "I TOASTED YOU WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! I LOVINGLY DESEEDED AND DESTEMMED YOU! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????!!!!!"

so then i stripped myself of all my protective gear and ran to check the recipe.

oh.

see, frying the chile puree calls for 1/2 cup. i had memorized this as 1/4. then i thought, well to avoid all that oil, i'll just reduce it by a little bit, say, 2 tablespoons instead of 3.
in the end there just wasn't enough oil to bite back like it should have.

nevertheless, my mole still kicks butt. as in, your butt. as in, all of your butts that have never made a mole poblano FROM SCRATCH before, which i'm pretty sure is all of your butts. and next time, i promise.....

FOOM!