Mole [MOH-lay] sauce is the Mexican version of “everything but the kitchen sink.” The word comes from the Aztec language and simply means “concoction.” How’s that for a recipe? I make a lot of mole sauces.

This Mexican sauce, a smooth, thick sauce traditionally used on turkey, varies from cook to cook and with available ingredients. It can be red, green, or yellow, but generally contains several varieties of dried chili peppers (mulato, pasilla, ancho), seeds and nuts (almonds, peanuts, pumpkin, sesame), spices (allspice, cinnamon, cumin), “fruits” (cloves, garlic, onion, tomatoes, tomatillos, raisins), and thickeners (tortillas, bread, chocolate).

That last ingredient is the one that leaves most people scratching their heads, “Chocolate on turkey?” The vision of a turkey leg coated in chocolate, a chocolate drumstick, might turn anyone off.

Chocolate is not an uncommon ingredient in both Italian and Spanish cooking; often added to ragouts and meat sauces. The fact is that the small amount of chocolate added to sauces does not add an identifiable chocolate taste, but creates depth of flavour and reduces bitterness. One reference book I use on spices and flavourings suggests adding a square of semi-sweet chocolate to any of your meat stews to see if it makes a subtle difference.

Mole poblano, the chocolate-containing mole sauce that we often think of when we hear mole, was named after its Mexican city of origin, Puebla de los Angeles. It is believed that the first time it was recorded that chocolate was added to a mole was sometime in the 17^th century at a convent in this city. Supposedly, the Spanish nuns were preparing a meal for an important dignitary at short notice, and were game to try anything they could find in their panty—I can relate to that. The use of unsweetened chocolate would not seem unusual for these Spanish women. Chocolate was found to meld well with the other more traditional spices and chilies of Mexican cooking. This of course may be just another one of those “magical realism” tales that seem to come from those steamy Latin countries south of us.

Mole probably got its biggest notoriety when everyone, everywhere was reading Like Water for Chocolate, the book that put sex back into the kitchen. Each chapter of the novel highlights one Mexican recipe and another steamy scene between Tita  and her new brother-in-law, a truly dishonourable piece-of-work who marries Tita’s sister so that he can play house with the woman he really lusts after. Sounds real to me!

When Tita makes a cake for her sister’s wedding, her tears become incorporated in the batter and this causes the guests to vomit with anguish and sadness. (Or perhaps just food poisoning?)

When later, Pedro, the unimaginably insensitive brother-in-law gives Tita a bouquet of roses; she clutches them so tightly that she is soon covered in blood. She makes a rose petal sauce which incorporates the blood from her bleeding heart, and the resulting sauce causes another sister to become wild with lust; running away naked , to her lover.

But it is the preparation of the turkey in mole sauce for the baptism of her sister’s child with Pedro that creates the hottest scenes in the story. The preparation is burdensome, but carried out with pride, perfection and apparently lust. The turkeys are prepared days ahead by forced feeding with walnuts. The roasted chilies, seeds, and nuts are ground by hand in a manner that has both Tita and Pedro panting for each other. The resulting sauce leaves everyone who eats it feeling euphoric.

Leaving aside the blood, lust, and tears, the preparation of a traditional mole sauce can be exhausting. This is largely because everyone is running off to the bedroom…No, not really! But, because it is considered a dish of great culinary pride, a lot of care is taken and skill used in determining how much of which ingredients should be used. The ingredients list for more elaborate versions can contain over 30 ingredients and up to six different types of chilies. Shopping to find all the ingredients alone would take it out of me!

The reason that some recipes seem to include such a variety of seemingly impossible to find chilies is that each adds a particular heat and flavour to the recipe. Most recipes written for North American cooks, will offer substitutes for the specific peppers used. (I found a good supply of dried peppers at a spice market in Lonsdale Quay, North Vancouver.) In many cases, the use of ground New Mexican chili is sufficient. This is not the same as “Mexican chili powder,” which should be avoided when making mole. That powder is a mixture of other spices, sugar, and even colouring.

There are many less intimidating recipes and you will often come across mole recipes without chocolate. The chocolate used is generally Mexican chocolate. This is a sweetened chocolate that contains almonds and cinnamon. A substitute for this is unsweetened cocoa powder and cinnamon, or semi-sweet chocolate.

You may find mole paste in speciality stores, but as there is no Mexican grocery store here on Gabriola, I found a good recipe for making your own paste that can be frozen. If you are going to run around looking for ancho, pasilla, or mulatto chilies, you might want to make a huge batch. Once you have the paste, you only have to add it to tomato sauce to prepare your mole.

And then of course, there is always the less sexy version; the “Mole in a minute” recipe; the one from the newspaper that is guaranteed to make your like simpler. You basically make a chicken and tomato stew, but add cinnamon and cocoa powder to it. Surprisingly, this tastes very good. It actually tastes somewhat like a mole sauce, although I’m sure I will be haunted by the spirit of those Mexican nuns. Maybe that’s where the expression, “Holy mole!” came from.