Much Ado About Mole

The last time you enjoyed our delicious Pollo Con Mole, you might have wondered-Where does delicious and dark mole sauce come from? What's it made out of?

Called "The National Sauce of Mexico", mole is a generic name for a family of sauces used in Mexican food. The word mole comes from the Nahuatl word “milli” which means sauce or “concoction”. In Spain, it's refers specifically to "mole poblano", but there are black, yellow, red, green variations and more.  No matter the variety, moles are surprisingly complex sauces, sometimes having as much as 33 ingredients. Probably the most surprising ingredient in some mole sauces- including mole poblano- is chocolate, which takes some of the heat out of the chiles used in the sauce.

Moles are very time-consuming to make and were usually concocted for special occasions. In fact, special trips had to be made just to grind the ingredients properly!

From MexOnline.com-

Because mole takes so much time to prepare, it is usually made in huge batches, too large for the home blender to handle. Therefore, women take their mole ingredients, all cooked and ready to blend, to large “molinos” or grinders in their neighborhood. The mole is passed through the grinders and comes out smoother than you could get from your home blender. It is not unusual to see women walking home from the molinos with buckets of mole for a fiesta.

Come to Matttito's and enjoy our Pollo con Mole to experience a centuries-old Mexican tradition for yourself.