GLORIA’S MOLE DE OLLA
Mole de Olla is an unpretentious everyday Mexican soup of bone broth blended with roasted pasilla and ancho chiles, tomatoes, and cumin. This soup is commonly served with big chunks of vegetables and pieced of chicken or beef. Gloria, my family’s cook in Mexico, prepared this soup once a week for lunch. We accompanied it with steaming hot tortillas and a wedge of lime. Sometimes, we added spoonfuls of rice and pinto beans. This recipe is from my cookbook Bone Deep Broth.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
2 dried ancho chiles
2 dried pasilla chiles (also called chile negro)
3 tomatoes, peeled and quartered
1 pinch cumin seeds
2 tablespoons lard, tallow, or olive oil
Bite-size pieces of poached or roasted chicken, or slices of steak
6 cups chicken bone broth
Seasonal vegetables: 2 cups, cubed in Mexico the soup is most often made with green beans, zucchini, chayote squash, slices of corn on the cob and potato)
Dry-roast the ancho and pasilla chiles until fragrant. Remove the seeds and stems and blend in a blender with the tomatoes and cumin seeds.
In a heavy-bottomed deep pot, fry the chile paste in avocado or olive oil. After 3-5 minutes, add the chicken or steak and mix thoroughly. Add the broth and bring to a quick boil. Reduce the heat, add the vegetables, and simmer until the vegetables are cooked but not too soft.