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FijiFlavors · Puebla
Thick, dark sauce made from several dried chiles, spices, seeds and chocolate, traditionally served with turkey. Tradition links its creation to the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, the city that gives it its name.
Traditional dish from Puebla, Puebla
Also known as: mole poblano de guajolote
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Mole poblano — Puebla, Mexico
Mole poblano is a thick, dark-brown sauce that brings together dried chiles, such as mulato, ancho and pasilla, with spices, seeds, dried fruit, toasted tortilla or bread and chocolate. The ingredients are toasted, ground and slowly cooked until they form a glossy paste that coats pieces of turkey or chicken. The result is spicy, sweet and bitter at the same time.
The word mole comes from the Nahuatl mulli, which means sauce. Ground-chile sauces existed before the Spaniards arrived; in the colonial period ingredients from other continents were added, such as cinnamon, clove, almond and sesame.
In Puebla, the most told story says mole poblano was born in the kitchen of the Convent of Santa Rosa in the 17th or 18th century, prepared by the nuns for an important visit; some versions name a nun, Sor Andrea de la Asunción. It is a legend, without documentary proof. The kitchen of the old convent, fully lined with Talavera tiles, is now part of the Museo de Arte Popular in the city and can be visited.
Mole poblano is a celebratory dish: it appears at weddings, baptisms, birthdays and religious festivities, often served with rice and corn tortillas. In Puebla you can also buy ready mole paste that at home is diluted with broth.
Puebla , Puebla
Tradition associates the creation of mole poblano with the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in the city of Puebla; it is a legend without documentary proof.
Dried chiles (mulato, ancho, pasilla, chipotle, depending on the recipe); tomato; onion and garlic; almond, peanut and sesame; raisins; cinnamon, clove, pepper and anise; toasted tortilla or bread; chocolate; broth; turkey or chicken.
Pieces of turkey or chicken covered with the sauce, sprinkled with toasted sesame, served alongside rice and corn tortillas. The sauce also fills enchiladas and tamales.
Family gatherings, weddings, baptisms and religious celebrations. In Puebla it is eaten year-round.
Your questions
Ground-chile sauces already existed before the Spaniards. Puebla’s tradition attributes mole poblano to the nuns of the Convent of Santa Rosa in the colonial era; it is a legend without documentary proof.
Yes, in a small amount, together with dried chiles, spices, seeds and dried fruit. The chocolate provides color and a bittersweet note; the sauce is not sweet.
In Puebla’s historic center, in the old Convent of Santa Rosa, now the Museo de Arte Popular. The kitchen is lined with Talavera tiles.
Flavors of Mexico
Layers of corn tortillas with black beans and shredded cazón, cooked with epazote, topped with tomato sauce and habanero chile. Despite the name, it does not contain wheat bread. It is considered a symbol of Campeche cuisine.
Salted, dried beef — tasajo — cooked in a thick sauce of ground pumpkin seeds, with tomato and rice. It is the celebratory dish of Chiapa de Corzo, served especially during the January Fiesta Grande, the Parachicos festival.
Tacos of pork seasoned with a chile adobo, roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo), and served in a corn tortilla with pineapple, onion and cilantro. They descend from the tacos árabes brought to Puebla by Middle Eastern immigrants and took their current form in Mexico City taquerías.
White fish taco coated in a light batter and fried until golden, served on a corn tortilla with cabbage, tomato-and-onion salsa, mayonnaise or cream, and lime. It originated around 1960 at the stalls of the Mercado Negro, the fish market at the port of Ensenada.
Sandwich made with birote bread, a hard-crusted loaf, filled with carnitas and drenched in tomato sauce, with a spicy chile de árbol sauce on the side. A symbol of Guadalajara’s cuisine, which dedicated a municipal day to it on September 10.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo chile sauce and fried, filled with cheese and onion, served with boiled potato and carrot, lettuce and pickled chiles. A typical dish of the city of Guanajuato, which tradition links to the wives of the silver mine workers.
Broth of cacahuazintle corn and pork thickened with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillo and herbs, served with many accompaniments. Dish from Guerrero, where Thursdays are pozole day.
Thin, crispy batter cooked on a round griddle and rolled like a tube, filled with queso de bola, a cheese of the Edam type. A street sweet from Mérida, created by a family of ice-cream makers in the city and sold at night from carts in the plazas.
Whole fish butterflied open, seasoned with a chile sauce and grilled over coals secured in a double-wire grill, the zaranda, which gives it its name. An official publication places its origin on the island of Mexcaltitán, on the northern coast of Nayarit.
Milk-fed kid opened, salted and slowly roasted on an iron stake beside the embers, in the shepherds’ style. It is the best-known dish of Nuevo León, present on the state’s traditional gastronomy routes, from Monterrey to the northern municipalities.
The darkest of Oaxaca’s moles: a thick sauce of chiles toasted almost to the point of burning, including the chilhuacle negro, with chocolate, seeds and spices. A celebratory dish of the state, prepared mainly in the Valles Centrales.
Poblano chile stuffed with a meat-and-fruit picadillo, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley, in the colors of the Mexican flag. A seasonal dish from late summer, associated with the city of Puebla.
Pork slowly cooked in its own lard in large pots until tender inside and golden outside, served in tacos. Quiroga, near Lake Pátzcuaro, is called the capital of carnitas: families in the town have been making them for more than a century.
Raw shrimp butterfly-cut and cured in lime with chiltepín chile, served with cucumber and red onion. It originated in the mountains of Sinaloa as a meat broth with water and chile and reached the coast, where shrimp took the place of meat. It is presented as the state’s most representative dish.
Freshwater fish with a long snout, grilled whole over coals and eaten with tortilla, lime, salt and chile amashito. It lives in the rivers and lagoons of Tabasco and is one of the state’s most representative dishes, with roots in pre-Hispanic cuisine of the southeast.
Distilled spirit from blue agave named after the city of Tequila, in Jalisco, surrounded by agave fields. It has a designation of origin since 1974, and the agave landscape and the region’s old industrial facilities are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Salad of romaine lettuce leaves with a dressing of egg, lemon, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, served with croutons. It was created in Tijuana by the Italian cook Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, according to Tijuanan historian José Fernando Escobedo de la Torre.
Red snapper cooked in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, garlic, onion, herbs and pickled chiles güeros or jalapeños. A coastal Veracruz dish, from the Gulf of Mexico, considered one of the country's best-known fish recipes.
Pork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaf and slowly cooked in an earth oven, the pib. A Sunday family dish from Yucatán that combines the pig brought by the Spaniards with a Mayan cooking technique.
