Mole Verde Food

MOLE VERDE

Steps:

• Place the meat and bay leaf in a large casserole, and add just enough water to barely cover it. Turn heat to medium and cook for about 30 minutes with the lid on. The water will start to reduce, and the meat will start browning on its rendered fat. The slow cooking process will produce a tender meat. If after this period of time your meat still looks though, keep cooking and add a little bit more water as needed.
• While the meat is cooking, place tomatillos in a saucepan*, cover with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Once it starts boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer until tomatillos are pale green and soft, about 6-8 minute.o
• Place the cooked and drained tomatillos in a blender with the pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, Serrano peppers, garlic, onion, romaine lettuce leaves, Hoja Santa leaves, cilantro leaves, spices, and 1 cup of water or chicken broth. Process until you have a very smooth sauce. Depending on your blender, you may need to work in batches.
• By this time, the meat should be starting to brown in the casserole. Pour the sauce over the meat and cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently to avoid the sauce from sticking to the bottom. Once the sauce starts boiling, reduce the heat to low and simmer gently to allow all the flavors to be absorbed. Add the cubed vegetables and more water as needed.
• Keep slowly simmering until the vegetables are cooked, about 8 minutes. Serve warm with a nice portion of rice and corn tortillas to scoop up the mole sauce from the plate.

MOLE VERDE: GREEN MOLE

Steps:

• Toast the pumpkin seeds in an ungreased pan, turning them over and shaking the pan from time to time to prevent them from burning. Set them aside to cool and then grind them in an electric grinder to a fine powder. Put 1 1/2 cups of the broth in a blender, gradually adding the tomates verdes, lengua de vaca, hoja santa, chopped epazote, and chiles, blending as smooth as possible.
• Heat the lard in a flameproof casserole in which you are going to serve the mole and fry the blended ingredients, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking; cook for about 25 minutes. Add the rest of the epazote.
• Stir 1/2 cup of the broth into the pumpkin seeds until you have a smooth consistency and gradually stir into the cooked ingredients. Continue cooking over low heat, stirring constantly for 10 more minutes. Take care that the pumpkin seed mixture does not form into lumps; if this happens, put the sauce back into the blender and blend until smooth. Add any remaining broth and salt, to taste. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water to dilute.

MOLE VERDE

Steps:

• Add the tomatillos, poblano, onion, serrano chiles and garlic to a large preheated comal or cast-iron skillet set over medium heat. Cook everything until lightly charred and soft on all sides, about 20 minutes. The poblano should take the longest to cook, while the garlic cloves will be done in about 5 to 8 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat a dry small to medium skillet over medium. Once warmed, toast the sesame seeds, stirring constantly, until golden and fragrant, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the toasted seeds to a large bowl and set aside.
• Toast the pepitas in the same skillet, stirring constantly, until golden, popped and fragrant, 4 to 5 minutes. Add them to the bowl with sesame seeds.
• Toast the almonds in the same skillet, stirring constantly, until lightly seared and fragrant, 4 to 5 minutes. Add them to the bowl with the seeds.
• Toast the bay leaves and cloves until the leaves lightly brown and the cloves become fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add to the same bowl with the seeds.
• Stem and seed the charred chiles, and add them along with the remaining charred ingredients and the toasted ingredients to a blender. Add the romaine, cilantro, epazote, hoja santa (if using) and 2 ½ cups vegetable stock. Blend until almost smooth yet slightly lumpy and textured. Use more of the vegetable stock as needed to smooth out the mixture. If you don't have a high-powered blender, you may need to blend in two batches, adding equal amounts of the wet and dry ingredients to each batch.
• Heat a large, deep pot over medium-low. Once warmed, add the oil. Once the oil is hot and shimmering, carefully add the mole from the blender. There will be some splatter. Stir in the salt and simmer the mole for 15 to 20 minutes, until the flavors meld together, stirring occasionally to make sure the mole doesn't burn at the bottom of the pot.
• Serve with seared mushrooms, tofu steaks or roasted cauliflower, paired with Mexican rice. Extra mole can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a week or frozen for up to 3 months in an airtight container.

MOLE VERDE

Steps:

• First things first, get all of those vegetables chopped and your other ingredients ready to go before you begin! The timing of adding each ingredient is important so you don't want to burn your onions while you're trying to chop the broccoli, okay?!
• Okay, grab an 8-quart pot, add the tablespoon of oil and set on a medium-high burner. Once the oil is hot but not smoking add the onions and potatoes. You want to cook the onions til they just start getting a bit of color. Keep stirring them with a wooden spoon. Bonus points if you have a flat bottom wooden spoon! When the onions are ready, add the sage leaves, bay leaves, garlic, salt and pepper. Stir all that up real good and saute until you can really smell the sage and garlic, 1 to 2 minutes. Now add the water, scrape the bottom of the pot with your spoon to get up all those good bits and bring this up to a boil. Let this boil until your potatoes are soft, about 5 minutes.
• While you wait for the potatoes to get soft you want to set up your blender and a fine mesh strainer over another pot, bowl or container that you'll strain the sauce into.
• When the potatoes are soft, you'll add the Anaheim peppers and broccoli to the pot and stir to combine. Cook until the broccoli stems are just soft, aka al dente. This is a key step so don't get distracted! Put your phone in another room and focus on the vegetables! You want your sauce to be bright green so pay attention. As soon as the broccoli is ready, kill the heat on the pot and add the parsley and sunflower seeds and give it a good stir. Immediately take your pot to where you're going to blend the sauce. Blend the mole in two or three batches, depending on the size of your blender. Remember that your mole is piping hot so make sure to start your blender on low and increase the speed slowly, unless you want mole on your ceiling. As you increase the speed, reserve enough of the remaining 1/2 cup olive oil for each successive batch add the oil to the blender. Let the mole blend on high for about a minute until it's really well blended. As you work each batch you may want to adjust the amount of liquid in the blender. If it seems too thin, then don't add as much of the cooking liquid on the next batch and vice versa. Think rich, silky potato soup you could scoop up with a tortilla.
• Strain each batch through your strainer. You can use a ladle to help push the mole through the strainer and speed things up a bit. After you have blended up and strained all the mole, whisk it together so the final sauce is consistent throughout.
• At this point the mole is ready to serve. If you're making ahead of time, try and get the mole into an airtight container and cooling in the fridge as quickly as possible to keep that bright green color. You can also freeze the mole for that dinner party you're having in a month.

MOLE VERDE -- MEXICAN GREEN SAUCE

Steps:

• Toast the pumpkin seeds in an ungreased pan, turning them over and shaking the pan from time to time to prevent them from burning.
• Set them aside to cool.
• Grind them in an electric grinder or blender to a fine powder.
• Put 1 1/2 cups of the broth in a blender, gradually adding the tomatillos, sorrel, hoja santa, chopped epazote, and chiles, blending as smooth as possible.
• Heat the lard in a flameproof casserole in which you are going to serve the mole; fry the blended ingredients, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking for about 25 minutes.
• Add the rest of the epazote.
• Stir 1/2 cup of the broth into the pumpkin seeds until you have a smooth consistency and gradually stir into the cooked ingredients.
• Continue cooking over low heat, stirring constantly for 10 more minutes.
• Take care that the pumpkin seed mixture does not form into lumps; if this happens, put the sauce back into the blender and blend until smooth.
• Add any remaining broth and salt, to taste.
• If the sauce is too thick, add a little water to dilute.