Making Mole in San Diego Recipe

When I was in San Diego recently, I had an impromptu mole making lesson with a Mexican friend of a friend. We’re not talking about subterranean dwelling creatures here, we’re talking about mole-AY, which is basically a Mexican sauce. In Mexico, apparently, the term mole can mean any number of sauces but generally, and certainly outside of Mexico, it mostly refers to mole poblano, a dark reddish-brown sauce which is served with meat. The ingredients typically include chillies, chocolate (just a little bit, this isn’t a chocolate sauce as is often assumed), and…well after that people start to argue.

The making of mole is typically quite a long and complex process, and I’ve read lots of stories about the roasting of chillies, which…