Chiles blister on a hot griddle. Seeds clatter into a pan. Spices perfume the air as chefs grind, roast, and stir for hours — sometimes days — to craft the perfect paste. The making of mole is a symphony of the senses, as much a ritual as it is a recipe, demanding time, patience, and reverence for tradition.
Every abuela, every cook, has their own interpretation. Some rely on earthy ancho and pasilla chiles, while others draw from the brightness of tomatillos or the richness of nuts like almonds and peanuts. Chocolate often makes an appearance, as do toasted seeds and bread, creating a savory sauce that’s as varied as the hands that prepare it. The traditional reddish-brown mole poblano is most common, but mole presents in a spectrum of colors, with some preparations incorporating ingredients like squash, plantains, or yellow masa.
Its history, like its recipes, differs depending on who you ask. By most accounts, Oaxaca and Puebla share a claim to fame as the birthplace, but the stories diverge from there. One particularly entertaining tale describes panicked nuns concocting a sauce from available ingredients to impress an archbishop. Another version suggests chocolate fell into the mix by accident, resulting in the now-beloved dish. While the origins may be a thing of folklore, the smoky, velvety sauce has become a staple of Mexican cuisine shared from one generation to the next.
Chiles blistering over an open flame.
Such is the case at the Palm Springs restaurant El Mirasol, founded in 1985 by Felipe Castañeda. He started out making pollo en mole poblano according to his mother’s recipe. “It’s not an easy dish to make,” he admits. When Castañeda married his wife, Lisbet, in 1992, she took over mole duties, blending her family’s Zacatecan culinary techniques with his. Over time, they perfected their own rich, silky sauce that has remained a centerpiece of the menu for more than three decades.
The secret ingredient? There are almost too many to count. Dried pasilla, poblano, ancho, and mirasol chiles blend with cocoa and a variety of seeds, including pepitas, to build the mole’s complex flavor. But Felipe says the most important “ingredient” isn’t actually an ingredient at all.
“It’s that we make the paste from scratch,” he explains. “We don’t take shortcuts. It’s a weeklong ordeal.”
Each week, Lisbet carefully selects, cleans, and toasts the chiles, grinding them by hand with an old-fashioned stone mill. “It’s almost like a ritual for her,” says their daughter Monica Castañeda. “She can only do it so long because the stone gets too hot. Then she starts again. It takes two days just to make the paste, and she makes 80 to 100 pounds.”
The paste is divided into bricks, frozen, and thawed to create each batch. Felipe’s brother Chuy, who serves as the restaurant’s chef, rehydrates the paste with chicken stock, simmering it until it thickens to just the right consistency, then drapes it over tender chicken breast.
Every mole bares the flavorful stamp of the family that crafts it. At La Tablita in Cathedral City, co-owner Miguel Hurtado carries on a family tradition rooted in his grandmother’s kitchen. His sauce incorporates chocolate, a variety of spices, black pepper, dried ancho and pasilla chiles, sesame seeds, peanuts, garlic, raisins, bread, and his abuela’s signature addition of Saltine crackers. “Every family puts their own ingredients,” says Hurtado, who grew up in San Miguel el Alto, a small town near Guadalajara. “My grandma did it this way, and she taught my mom, and my mom came here and showed us.”
Saucy pollo en mole poblano from El Mirasol.
The preparation is meticulous. Chiles are fried in one pan, then blended with water, while other ingredients are fried and blended separately. The chile mixture simmers before the remaining components are added, slowly melding over an hour of careful stirring. The process produces a mole with rich flavor and distinctive texture.
Though traditionally paired with turkey in Mexico, mole in the United States is most often served with chicken. “Chicken breast is pretty plain,” Hurtado elaborates. “It doesn’t have as much flavor as pork, which is salty, so if you really want to taste the mole, chicken is the best choice.” At La Tablita, diners can enjoy it with enchiladas, too, by popular demand.
Lisbet Castañeda shows off some of the ingredients she uses at El Mirasol.
Dried chiles and spices at La Tablita.
Mole with chicken at La Tablita.
El Mirasol also accommodates creative requests. While pollo en mole poblano is the only official menu item with mole, guests often ask for mole with enchiladas or carnitas. “People love carnitas on top of the mole. The fattiness with it is really delicious,” Monica says.
Making an authentic mole is a true labor of love, and the proof lies in the sensory experience of eating it.
“It’s very popular where I’m from, and it makes me happy to see how much people like it here too,” Hurtado says. “They ask for it, and they come back for it.”
Monica Castañeda agrees: “The best response is when they say, ‘This tastes like home.’ ”
Some of the many ingredients used in the recipe at El Mirasol.
