The Hirshon Mexican White Mole Sauce – Molé Blanco

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Molé Blanco Image Used Under Creative Commons License From cookandchefinstitute.com

Citizens, I, the mighty TFD am preparing to head off to Mexico this weekend to visit my sister-in-law. To prepare myself for the glorious foods of this country, I would very much like to share the unique white mole sauce recipe with you!

Mole blanco (“white mole”) is a type of mole of the cuisine of Mexico, one of the rarest in fact! This type of thickened sauce is prepared with a mixture of light-colored ingredients.

The ingredients lightly roasted are peanuts without skin, skinless almonds, sunflower, white pinion and white corn tortilla.

The elements fried in oil are sliced banana, chopped apple, blonde raisins, sliced onion, pieces of chile güero and bits of habanero chile.

These ingredients are ground by parties in a blender or in a molcajete, adding milk, white chocolate, and water or broth, along with seasonings items like garlic, cloves, allspice, cinnamon strips and anise. An aromatic mole is obtained, with a mild flavor.

As noted on newyork.serioueats.com:

There are the seven moles of Oaxaca—and then there is mole blanco. Absent even from Diana Kennedy’s exhaustive culinary ethnography Oaxaca Al Gusto, this mole, also known as mole de novia, is a virtual unknown compared to its sister dishes.

I never heard of it before Natalia Mendez, one of the mom and pop owners of Mott Haven’s La Morada, casually mentioned it in a conversation about the Oaxacan specialties she has cooked here. La Morada makes the dish, and trying it is worth a special visit.

Natalia and her family, including her husband Antonio Saavedra and three children, hail from the tiny town of San Miguel Ahuehuetitlán (pop. 226) in the Silacayoapam District of Oaxaca’s Mixteca Region. With her son Marco acting as interpreter, she explained that mole blanco is a Mixteca dish usually eaten during Easter or Christmas.

The most traditional way to serve it, he told me, is with an edible flower known as pípí or chitapí in Mixtec that comes from a tree and tastes like green beans. Unsurprisingly, they have been unable to find it here. Other acceptable avenues for the sauce include rabbit (seen here), various fowl, and chiles rellenos.

Citizens, my version is resolutely traditional with just a hint of TFD magic in the spicing – I hope you will take it upon yourself to try this rarest of mole sauces!

Battle on – The Generalissimo