Mole de Olla con Xoconostle

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart olla de barro or stockpot
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and tomatoes
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer for the chile puree
• •Cazuelas de barro from the central highlands for serving (Metepec green-and-white or Tlaxcala terracotta)

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the beef broth

   Place the shank and short ribs in a heavy 8-quart olla or stockpot. Cover with cold water by three inches. Add the halved onion, halved head of garlic, bay leaves, and salt. Bring to a slow simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam off the top for the first twenty minutes. The marrow bone gives this broth its body. Do not skip it and do not substitute boneless beef. That is not mole de olla, that is soup.

   Cold water start, low simmer, patient skimming. A rolling boil clouds the broth and turns the meat into rope.
2. 2

   Simmer the meat low and slow

   Lower the heat until you see one lazy bubble breaking the surface every couple of seconds. Cover partially and cook for one hour and forty-five minutes, until the shank is fork-tender and the meat is starting to pull away from the bone. The collagen needs time to break down. No me vengas con atajos.

3. 3

   Toast the chiles and spices

   While the meat simmers, heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the guajillo, pasilla, and ancho separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side. They should puff and turn fragrant, never blacken. Pull them as they go. On the same comal, toast the cumin and cloves for thirty seconds until you smell them. That toasting is the recipe. A raw chile puree tastes flat and metallic.

   Pasilla is the thinnest of the three and the easiest to burn. Watch it like you mean it. Burned chile is bitter chile and there is no recovering from it.
4. 4

   Soften and blend the chile base

   Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skin and makes the puree bitter. Let them soften for 20 minutes. While they soak, char the tomatoes directly on the comal until the skins are blackened in patches and the flesh has softened. Transfer the drained chiles, tomatoes, three cloves of raw garlic, the toasted cumin and cloves, and a cup of the beef broth to the blender. Blend until completely smooth.

5. 5

   Fry the chile puree

   Melt the manteca in a small skillet over medium heat. Strain the chile puree through a fine-mesh sieve directly into the hot lard, pressing on the solids to extract every drop. It will sputter. Cook for six to eight minutes, stirring constantly, until the puree darkens by a shade and the fat separates at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This is the step that turns the chile from raw to deep, and the step most home recipes leave out.

6. 6

   Combine and start the vegetables

   Pour the fried chile base into the pot of meat and broth. Stir to combine. Fish out the spent garlic head, onion halves, and bay leaves and discard. Add the elote rounds first. The corn takes the longest of the vegetables and needs about twenty minutes. Simmer gently.

7. 7

   Add the chayote, ejotes, and xoconostle

   After the corn has simmered for ten minutes, add the chayote wedges, ejotes, and the halved seeded xoconostles. The xoconostle is the soul of this stew. It is a sour wild prickly pear from the central highlands, and it does what lime cannot: it cuts through the chile and the fat with a green, bracing acidity that builds into the broth itself rather than sitting on top. If you cannot find xoconostle at a Mexican mercado, do not substitute. Make a different stew.

8. 8

   Finish with calabacitas and epazote

   After another ten minutes, add the calabacitas and the sprig of epazote. Calabacitas cook fast and turn to mush if you put them in too early. The epazote is non-negotiable. Not cilantro, not parsley. Epazote. It is the herb that ties this stew to Puebla and to the central altiplano. Simmer for eight to ten more minutes, until the calabacitas are tender but still hold their shape and the broth has thickened slightly from everything cooking together. Taste for salt now. The vegetables drink it up.

9. 9

   Serve in barro at the table

   Ladle into deep cazuelas de barro, giving each bowl a piece of shank with the bone, a few rounds of corn, chayote, ejotes, calabacitas, and a half of xoconostle. The marrow bone in your bowl is a gift. Push it out with the handle of a spoon and spread it on a warm tortilla. Set lime, raw onion, cilantro, and warm tortillas on the table. Each person finishes their own bowl. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •The chiles are the recipe. Guajillo for color and a clean medium heat, pasilla for the dark fruity depth, ancho for a touch of sweetness and body. Skip the pasilla and the stew goes flat. Add chile de arbol if you want more heat, but do not change the base three. Pregunta a las senoras del mercado.
• •Xoconostle is non-negotiable. You will find it at any serious Mexican mercado, often near the tunas and nopales. It looks like a small dusty prickly pear with a thick rind. Peel it like a potato, halve it, scoop out the seeds with the tip of a spoon. The flesh is what you want. Without it, this is just caldo de res with chiles.
• •Beef shank with the marrow bone is the only cut. Boneless stew beef will not give you the broth body that holds this dish together. Ask the carnicero for chambarete con tuetano and have him cross-cut it into thick rounds.
• •Mole de olla is better the next day. Make it in the morning for lunch, or make it on a Sunday for dinner Monday. The chile and the broth marry overnight. Keep the vegetables a little under on day one if you plan to reheat.

Advance Preparation

• •The beef broth and the toasted-blended chile base can be made one day ahead and refrigerated separately. Combine and add the vegetables on serving day so the chayote and calabacitas hold their texture.
• •The whole stew keeps refrigerated for three days and the flavor only deepens. The corn and chayote hold up well. Reheat gently over low heat; a hard boil breaks the calabacitas down to mush.
• •Mole de olla does not freeze well. The vegetables turn to water on thaw. This is a fresh-made or one-day-ahead dish, not a freezer dish.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 700g)