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Mole coloradito con pollo

Chicken with mole coloradito in Oaxaca. Presentation may differ from this recipe. AlejandroLinaresGarcia · CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized source thumbnail; display may crop to fit.

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Begin in Oaxaca’s Valles Centrales, where market stalls, comales, and mole pots offer different ways to explore the same landscape. Coloradito brings dried chiles, toasted seeds, warm spices, and chocolate into a sauce with a deep red-brown glow.

La Gente

Making mole is a lesson in attention. Toasting develops fragrance; grinding builds texture; a slow simmer brings the ingredients together. This chicken recipe offers a practical introduction to those techniques, with room to notice what each spice contributes.

Sabor

The valley cooks in layers. Dried chile for the base, seeds and nuts for body, warm spices for the top note, chocolate to round it, and lard to carry all of it. Sweet and hot are in the same spoon. Nothing is raw. Everything is toasted, fried, or ground before it meets the pot.

Spice DNA · Smoke medium · Sweet medium · Heat medium · Herb low · Acid low

Seasonings to explore

Minced Garlic in Olive Oil. Into the blender with the chiles if you are not roasting fresh heads. Adds a savory garlic base.
Ancho Pepper, whole dried. The body and the fruit of the coloradito.
Guajillo Pepper, whole dried. The brightness and the red.
Cinnamon Sticks. Toasted whole, then ground with the rest.
Cloves, whole. Two. Not three.
Allspice, whole. Pimienta gorda in the valley.
Black Pepper, whole. A few corns, toasted with the other spices.
Hulled Sesame Seed. Toasted for the paste and again for the top.
Oregano, whole. Oaxaca uses Mexican oregano, a different plant with a stronger, more citrus edge. Ours is Mediterranean. Use a lighter hand and it works.
Cumin, ground. A pinch. The valley uses it sparingly.

From your market: a ripe plantain, a handful of almonds, raisins, ripe tomatoes, a white onion, garlic, a slice of bread or a stale tortilla, lard, chicken, and a tablet of Mexican chocolate. Badia does not sell the chocolate. A tablet of Oaxacan drinking chocolate is right; a good dark chocolate with a little sugar will do.

Cocina

Mole coloradito con pollo

The red mole of the Valles Centrales. Toast, don't burn. Fry, don't boil. Two days if you have them, one if you don't.

Serves 6

6 Badia Ancho Peppers, stemmed and seeded
6 Badia Guajillo Peppers, stemmed and seeded
3 tbsp lard or oil, plus more for frying the paste
¼ cup almonds
3 tbsp Badia Hulled Sesame Seed, plus more for serving
1 ripe plantain, sliced
1 thick slice of bread or 1 stale corn tortilla
3 ripe tomatoes
1 white onion, quartered
4 garlic cloves unpeeled, or 4 tsp Badia Minced Garlic in Olive Oil added at the blender
1 Badia Cinnamon Stick, about 2 inches
2 Badia Cloves, whole
3 Badia Allspice berries, whole
4 Badia Black Peppercorns, whole
1 tsp Badia Oregano, whole
¼ tsp Badia Cumin, ground
¼ cup raisins
2 oz Mexican chocolate, chopped
4 to 5 cups chicken broth
Salt
1 chicken, cut in pieces, poached in salted water with half an onion until cooked; keep the broth

Toast the chiles. On a dry comal or skillet over medium heat, press the chiles flat with a spatula 20 to 30 seconds per side, until they smell toasted and turn pliable. Do not let them blacken. Cover with hot water and soak 20 minutes. Drain.
Fry the body. In 3 tbsp lard, fry the almonds until golden and remove. Toast the sesame seeds in the same fat and remove. Fry the plantain slices until brown on both sides and remove. Fry the bread until golden and remove. Keep the fat.
Char the vegetables. On the comal, roast the tomatoes, onion, and garlic until blistered and soft, turning as they go. Peel the garlic.
Toast the spices. In the dry skillet, a few seconds only: cinnamon, cloves, allspice, peppercorns, oregano. Just until they release their smell.
Grind. In a blender, working in batches with a cup or so of broth each time, blend the chiles, almonds, sesame, plantain, bread, tomatoes, onion, garlic, spices, cumin, and raisins until completely smooth. Pass it through a sieve. The straining is what separates a mole from a chile sauce.
Fry the mole. Heat 2 tbsp lard in a wide pot until it shimmers. Pour in the paste. It will spit. Stir constantly over medium heat for 15 minutes as it darkens and thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pot.
Finish. Add the chocolate and stir until it melts into the sauce. Thin with broth until the mole coats the back of a spoon and drips slowly off it. Salt. Simmer 20 minutes on low, stirring now and then.
The chicken. Add the poached chicken pieces and simmer 15 minutes more so they take on the sauce.
Serve with rice, warm tortillas, and toasted sesame seeds over the top. The mole is better the next day, and everyone in Oaxaca will tell you to make it the day before.

Pueblos de Oaxaca

Oaxaca de Juárez · Tlacolula · Ocotlán · Zaachila · Etla · Mitla · Teotitlán del Valle · Santiago Matatlán · Ejutla · Miahuatlán · Juchitán · Tehuantepec · Salina Cruz · Huatulco · Puerto Escondido · Pinotepa Nacional · Tuxtepec · Huajuapan · Tlaxiaco · Nochixtlán