What to Eat in Mexico - Mole, Way Beyond Nutella

Before I came to Mexico I heard a weird rumor that Mexicans liked to eat chocolate covered chicken. I thought this combination of tastes was so contradictory that I always thought it was merely an urban legend... until I saw a Mole dish. Indeed, it looked like the chicken leg was smothered in a chocolate sauce.

Curiosity got the better of me, and as strange as it looked, I had to try it. The taste was nothing I'd expected: not sweet at all, instead a bit spicy, but very flavorful, and all in all delicious. Since I'm not a big fan of chicken, I actually thought how nice this sauce would be on some pork, or cheese, or even fried eggs.

So what IS Mole, really?

In the markets mole is sold in two forms: either as a powder, or as a paste. The powdered mole has to be mixed with some type of grease: butter, lard, or some type of oil, to turn it into a paste. This paste can be heated up, and turned into the famous sauce. But that doesn't explain what's in the powder.

Depending on the region of Mexico, Mole is made in a number of ways, using a variety of ingredients, which results in a diverse color spectrum: there is green mole, yellow mole, red mole, brown mole, black mole, just to mention the most common kinds.

It would take forever to list all the ingredients for the numerous types of mole, but they are usually a combination of a type of nut (almonds, walnuts, pecans), dried herbs, seeds, chili peppers, garlic, onion, sometimes even nopal cactus or beans, and yes: also a bit of chocolate. However, the cacao will never dominate the taste, though it blends well with the other ingredients.

As you can guess, mole requires it's own culinary exploration. The two most famous places for experiencing mole are the states of Puebla and Oaxaca, but even in the rest of Mexico mole is quite common. In fact, most street vendors of tamales offer mole tamales as one of their options.