I had bought tomatillos, serrano chilis, and chayote at El Super Friday evening.
I had remembered the green mole we ate in Oaxaca in May and thought I could replicate it. I researched Green Mole on Google and immediately found several recipes. The one that struck me as most authentically like what we had eaten was one from a chef of a Oaxaca restaurant, because I remember asking the waiter what was used to thickened sauce and he had said maize flour. When I checked the recipe against the ingredients we had, I found that we had all the ingredients except hoja Santa leaves, which are difficult to find in Albuquerque, since they grow mainly in Mexico and particularly in Oaxaca. Since chayote was not an ingredient, I recalled that when I asked the waiter in Oaxaca what vegetables they served with the green mole, he answered, “We have Chayote.”
So I researched braised chayote and found a recipe that called for cubing the chayote and braising it in butter or olive oil with garlic, onion and parsley covered for twenty minutes, so I realized I could merge the two dishes if I wanted to.
Here is the Green Mole recipe:
GREEN MOLE WITH PORK
ZARELA MARTINEZ THE FOOD AND LIFE OF
(Mole Verde con Puerco)
Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Zarela Martinez's book The Food and Life of Oaxaca. Martinez also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.
To read more about Martinez and Oaxacan cuisine, click here.
Mole Verde, or just Verde for short, is the lightest and freshest-tasting of Oaxaca's "seven moles." Of the many variants I've tried, this version served with pork loin at the Oaxaca City restaurant Casa de la Abuela is my favorite.
Fresh herb rather than spice accents are what distinguish a Mole Verde. A purée of green herbs has to be added at the last minute. In other parts of Mexico I've had green moles made with various greens, even lettuce leaves. But the Oaxacan Mole Verde uses just three: epazote, hoja santa, and parsley. If you can't get the first two you'll have to improvise with what's available, but the results will not be at all Oaxacan. Dried epazote and hoja santa are better than none at all, though the fresh herbs are incomparable. The amount of chiles can be varied to taste; however, this particular sauce is not usually very picante (hot).
At Casa de la Abuela they combine the sauce with white beans that have been cooked separately, to keep the flavors simple and distinct. It is very important not to overcook the pork loin, a tender cut that dries out easily. I have devised a way of using boned pork loin that gets some added flavor from the reserved bones. When you have the meat boned, ask the butcher to tie the meat to the backbone and ribs. At serving time, untie and carve it to distribute both meat and rib pieces equally. If this is not practical and you have to get preboned loin without the frame of bones, buy 1 pound of pork neck bones separately and cook them with the meat. It will add some body and flavor.
Mole Verde is also delicious made with chicken instead of pork. In that case, use a 3 1/2-pound chicken, cut into serving pieces, and simmer as directed below for the pork loin, reducing the cooking time to 30 minutes. Remove the skin before serving.
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YIELDMakes 4 to 6 servings
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds boneless center cut pork loin in one piece, rolled and tied together with the ribs and backbone
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, bruised
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
9 garlic cloves
8 whole cloves, or 1/4 teaspoon ground
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 jalapeño chiles, tops removed
6 large tomatillos, husks removed
1 small onion, cut into chunks
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh marjoram
1 cup (8 ounces) masa, either fresh or reconstituted by mixing 6 tablespoons masa harina to a smooth paste with 1 cup of water (see Tips, below)
1 medium bunch Italian parsley
Eight 6-inch sprigs fresh epazote or 1/4 cup dried, crumbled (see Tips, below)
3 large or 5 medium-size fresh hoja santa leaves or 6 dried leaves (see Tips, below)
2 cups cooked Great Northern or other white beans
PREPARATION
Choose a deep saucepan or Dutch oven large enough to hold the meat comfortably. Place the tied pork loin and bones in it along with the peppercorns, salt, and 4 of the garlic cloves. Add enough cold water to cover by 1 inch (at least 7 cups). Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, partly covered, for 1 hour, or until a meat thermometer inserted into the center reads 120° F. (Do not worry about the low temperature. The meat will cook more thoroughly in reheating.) Remove the meat and bones from the cooking stock and set aside. Strain the stock; you should have about 6 cups.
Grind the cloves and cumin together in an electric coffee or spice grinder, or with a mortar and pestle. Place the ground spices in a blender with the chiles, tomatillos, onion, thyme, marjoram, the remaining 5 garlic cloves, and 1/2 cup of the strained stock. Process until smoothly puréed (about 2 minutes on high).
Return the remaining strained stock to the pan; bring back to a boil, and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Add the puréed mixture to the hot stock and cook, uncovered, for 3 minutes.
Thin the masa by mixing with 1 cup water. Whisk the thinned masa into the stock mixture; whisking constantly, let the sauce return to the simmer.
Cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes, whisking occasionally. If lumps form, pass the mixture through a medium-mesh sieve (pushing with a spoon to force through the lumpy bits) and return to the heat. The mixture should thicken to the consistency of whipping cream; if necessary, increase the heat slightly to reduce and thicken it.
Untie the cooked pork and carve into serving pieces. Carve the bones into separate rib sections.
Place the parsely, epazote, and hoja santa in a blender or food processor. If using a blender, add a few tablespoons water to facilitate blending. Process to a smooth purée.
Add the cooked beans to the masa-thickened sauce and let return to a simmer. Return the carved meat and bones to the pot along with the puréed herbs. Taste and add more salt if desired. Cook until just heated through, 4 to 5 minutes. Give each person a piece or two of rib bone along with the meat and sauce. Serve immediately.
Chef Zarela Martinez shares her tips with Epicurious:
•This recipe, which can also be served over chicken or fish, is an example of the sophisticated sauce-making techniques for which Oaxaca is famous. Herbs, spices, and aromatics are puréed and mixed with stock; the sauce is then reduced and thickened with masa, a ground corn dough that performs a similar function to the roux in French cooking. Freshly puréed herbs are mixed in at the last minute for a sprightly, green flavor.
•Masa is a dough made from dried corn that has been treated with an alkali substance such as slaked lime and water and then ground. Fresh masa can be found at some Mexican grocery stores and at tortilla factories. For this recipe, be sure to avoid the masa preparada para tamales, which is mixed with lard and flavorings. Masa harina (dehydrated powdered masa, available at many grocery stores), is mixed with water to produce masa. Masa comes in fine and course grinds; either can be used in this recipe. Regular corn meal cannot be substituted for masa.
•Hoja santa, also called hierba santa or root-beer plant, has a distinctive anise- and sassafraslike flavor that's hard to duplicate. Epazote has a slightly bitter, pungent, somewhat medicinal flavor that mellows in cooking. Martinez recommends using these herbs fresh for authenticity; look in farmers' markets or buy whole plants from www.itsaboutthyme.com. Both herbs are available dried from www.kitchenmarket.com.
I then cooked the recipe. I found 2 lb. of assorted pork chops and boiled them for one hour in water and four chopped garlic cloves, per the recipe. While the pork was simmering, I chopped the tomatillos, garlic, onion, and two Serrano chilis and pureed them in a blender with ¼ tsp. of ground cloves, 1 tsp of ground cumin, 4 or 5 small sprigs of thyme from the garden and about 1 tsp. of dried marjoram leaves with ½ cup of pork broth for each of the three blendings it took to purée all the ingredients. I put the puréed ingredients into the Casserole and when the pork had cooked for one hour, removed the cooked pork to the fridge and strained the broth to the vegetable purée in the casserole. We did not have Mexican corn (flour masa for tortillas), but we did have American cornmeal, which is slightly more granular. I added 1 cup of corn meal to the purée and broth and then added ¼ cup of dried epazote and heated the sauce over a low heat to thicken it.
Suzette came home around 2:30 while I was peeling and dicing the garlic, onion, and two chayote for the braised chayote. When Suzette looked at the recipe she said, “We can cook all the recipe ingredients together. I will braise the pork and the chayote and add sauce to them and add black beans, which we have to complete the combined dish.”
So we had agreed to merge the two recipes. Suzette braised the pork and garlic and chayote and then added a 24 oz. can of cooked black beans and enough green mole sauce to cover the braised ingredients in the other large Le Creuset casserole, while I minced a bunch of parsley that each recipe called for and added the minced parsley to the second casserole while the combined ingredients were simmering as the recipe called for.
It was now about 5:00. Suzette reminded me that the restaurant in Oaxaca served their green mole with pork with rice and we agreed to make rice because Willy would want some and that would replicate the official recipe from Oaxaca, as we remembered it. We have eliminated rice from our diet. Suzette put the remaining green mole sauce into a 32 oz. yogurt container and I made 1 cup of basmati rice in the emptied casserole. Then, I made us gin and tonics with the Back River Gin we bought in Maine and I started watching the last stage of the Vuelta de Espana as we waited for Willy to show up for dinner. We received a call from Willy around 6:00 saying that he was not coming to dinner, since he has a Sunday evening dinner party he attends with friends who watch “Game of Thrones”.
So I fetched a Negra Modelo and Suzette made another Gin and tonic and Suzette plated our dinner with a bit of rice for me covered by the green mole sauce and a piece of pork from the pot and garnished the plate with some minced parsley.
The dish was thick and very flavorful. I remember that the restaurant in Oaxaca served the dish with leg pieces cut Oslo bucolic style that exposed the marrow inside the bones and recalled that this recipe suggested cooking pork bones with the recipe and realized that the collagen and marrow are part of this recipe. I was happy that I had chosen to use pork chops that had bones in then. Then I further realized that my meditation partner, Todd, had mentioned that eating foods with collagen may help relieve joint pain. The connection of the recipe to the health theory was revelatory. Had the Mexicans stumbled onto a healthy joint recipe or were they simply trying to extract all the available flavor from the pork they used as an ingredient in the dish?
It did not matter to me because either strategy resulted in a more delicious recipe. Next time I make the dish I will try to use pork shanks like the recipe in Mexico cur osso bucco style. In fact, while we ate Suzette said the dish reminded her of the pork shank baked in aluminum foil with chilis, tomatoes, and herbs we ate in Mexico a few years ago.
We both agreed that the green mole tasted a lot like what we had eaten in Oaxaca, except this rendition was a bit heavier from the use of American cornmeal, which gave the dish a little more substance as the larger bits of cornmeal swelled up into small noticeable h bits of corn. It was a delicious and very filling dish and relatively easy to make on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
We ate outside and enjoyed the sunset in the garden, mainly due to the absence of flies. Later we ate bowls of cold clafoutis. I put whipped cream on mine and drank a cup of earl grey tea with it.
Bon Appetit
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