Mole Negro Oaxaqueño

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 1.8kg), jointed into 8 pieces
• 2.5 litres water
• 1 large white onion, halved
• 10 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 tbsp fine sea salt, plus more to finish
• 6 chilhuacle negro chiles (about 60g), or 6 extra ancho chiles
• 6 guajillo chiles
• 4 pasilla mexicano chiles
• 4 mulato chiles
• 150g lard
• 2 corn tortillas
• 60g whole almonds
• 50g raw peanuts
• 60g sesame seeds, plus 1 tbsp to finish
• 40g pumpkin seeds
• 50g raisins
• 1 very ripe plantain, cut into 1cm coins
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 6 tomatillos, husked
• 1 cinnamon stick (5cm)
• 5 whole cloves
• 8 black peppercorns
• 1 tsp dried Mexican oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 2 dried avocado leaves
• 90g Oaxacan drinking chocolate, chopped
• 2 tbsp grated piloncillo

Before you cook

• Stem the chilhuacle, guajillo, pasilla and mulato chiles, tear each open and tip all the seeds and torn veins into a bowl. Keep every one of them.
• Halve the onion and peel the garlic.
• Slice the plantain into coins and husk the tomatillos.
• Chop the chocolate small.
• Open a window and turn the extractor fan on to full. Burning the seeds makes real smoke.

Steps

1. Put the chicken, one onion half, four garlic cloves and the tablespoon of salt in a large pot, cover with 2.5 litres of water and bring it to a simmer over medium heat.
2. Skim the foam and simmer the chicken gently for forty minutes, then lift the pieces onto a tray and strain the broth into a jug.
3. Melt three tablespoons of the lard in a wide heavy pan over medium heat.
4. Fry the four kinds of chile in batches for around fifteen seconds a side, until they puff and smell toasty, then move them to a bowl.
5. Cover the fried chiles with hot broth, weigh them down with a plate and leave them to soften for twenty-five minutes.
6. Lay the reserved chile seeds and veins in a dry heavy pan over high heat and let them burn, stirring, for four to six minutes until they are black and smoking hard but not yet powdery ash.
7. Tip the burnt seeds straight into a bowl of cold water, leave them for five minutes, then drain them well. This is the step that makes the mole black.
8. Toast the two tortillas directly over a gas flame or in the dry pan until they are charred stiff and black at the edges, then break them up.
9. Fry the almonds and peanuts in the lard for two minutes, until golden, and lift them into a bowl.
10. Fry the sesame and pumpkin seeds for one minute, until they pop and colour, and add them to the nuts.
11. Fry the raisins for twenty seconds, until plump, and add them in.
12. Fry the plantain coins for three minutes a side, until dark and sticky, and add them to the same bowl.
13. Char the tomatoes, tomatillos, the second onion half and six garlic cloves in a dry pan over high heat for eight minutes, turning until well blackened.
14. Toast the cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, oregano, thyme and avocado leaves in the dry pan for forty seconds, then grind them to a powder.
15. Blend the soaked chiles with the drained burnt seeds and 350ml of broth until completely smooth, then force the purée through a fine sieve.
16. Blend the nuts, seeds, raisins, plantain, charred tortilla, charred vegetables and ground spices with 500ml of broth, and sieve that purée too.
17. Heat five tablespoons of lard in the big pot over medium-high heat until it ripples.
18. Pour in the chile purée and fry it hard for twenty minutes, stirring the whole time, until it turns almost black and pulls away from the sides of the pot.
19. Stir in the nut purée and cook for ten minutes more, still stirring constantly.
20. Add the chocolate, the piloncillo and 1.2 litres of hot broth and stir until smooth.
21. Simmer the mole on the lowest heat for one hour, stirring every few minutes, until it is glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon heavily.
22. Season with salt and taste for balance. It should be bitter first, then sweet, with the burnt note sitting behind everything rather than in front.
23. Lower the chicken pieces into the mole and heat them through for ten minutes.
24. Serve with the reserved sesame seeds scattered over, and plenty of hot corn tortillas.