Mexico in L.A. : Ole Mole

The buzzing and kitchen clitter-clatter in the background were a sure sign we had connected. Patricia Quintana, cooking teacher and cookbook author, was on the other end of the line in Mexico City apologizing for the inconvenience of holding an interview while her class was in progress. “Yes, yes, the tortillas, use the tortillas,” she instructed the student, before turning her attention to the interview at hand.

Yes, yes, she agreed, Los Angeles is ready for regional Mexican cuisine. American cooks, she thinks, are zeroing in on the specifics of ingredients. “Now people are not only asking for chiles, but want to know what kind and how hot. They are becoming more interested in regional cuisines of Mexico as well as Europe and the Orient,” said Quintana, who has cooked for heads of state and who has, since 1980, run her own cooking school for chefs.

Quintana, who will participate in the citywide celebration of Mexican arts and culture by cooking at the Century Plaza Hotel Nov. 11 to 14 and teaching a cooking class there on Nov. 12, has devoted 25 years of her life to studying and promoting Mexican cuisine. Her books “Mexico’s Feast of Life” (Council Oaks Books), and “Taste of Mexico” (Tabori & Chang) are among the most usable and beautiful on the market. She is presently writing a book on fish and vegetables in Mexican cookery. Unlike her other books, however, this one will focus on influences of the regional cuisines of the Gulf of Mexico, Central Mexico and the Pacific states (Baja California, Sonora and Sinaloa).

“I am looking into the outside influences that make our cuisine unique,” she said.

Influences of the Spanish cuisine on Mexico are fairly well documented, but Quintana says that Mexican ingredients also influenced the cuisine of China. “Re-ally, re-ally,” she said. “Very few people know how Mexico influenced the cuisines of China. It was through Spanish traders that chiles traveled to Macao in Southeast China, and found their way to inland provinces, such as Sichuan and Hunan. The Spanish brought corn, squash and chocolate from Mexico to Europe and the Orient. That’s how China got into corn and chiles and how tomatoes traveled to Italy. And what would Italian spaghetti be without the Roma tomato from Mexico?” she asked.

Quintana’s favorite regional Mexican cuisine is from Oaxaca. “I love this cuisine because it’s kept a lot of the native Indian influences, the rituals of food and the blessings before cooking,” she said.

She also favors Oaxaca because it is the “land of the seven moles. “

“Each mole has a different taste and different look,” she said. Mole sauces add infinite flavor to plain foods by cooking foods in mole to make stews or serving moles as separate sauces.

Quintana described the seven moles.

Mole Negro: A sauce made with dark chiles, onions, garlic, tomatoes, black chile seeds, plantains and chocolate. Sometimes ginger and nutmeg are added; other times, cloves and cinnamon.

Mole de Pasilla: This mole contains the same ingredients as in Mole Negro except that red chiles are used.

Mole Rojo : The sauce relies on chile ancho, the dried form of the chile poblano or chile pasilla. The sauce is made with almonds, peanuts, sesame seeds, onion, garlic and tomatoes. Sometimes lard or oil is used. Roasted ingredients are sometimes ground up and mixed with cooking oil. The sauce is often used as a basting sauce for roast chicken or served with boiled turkey.

Mole Coloradito: A thinner mole is made with a mixture of chopped vegetables and chunks of beef stew, chile ancho and chile chipotle, thickened with dumplings made with corn masa.

Mole Chichilo: This mole is actually a combination of the basic ingredients of Mole Coloradito and Mole Rojo including flavoring from epazote, the pungent herb.

Mole Verde : This sauce is made with tomatillo (a tart husked fruit similar in looks to tomatoes), onion, garlic, green chile serrano and hoja santa, a licorice/anise-flavored herb. Epazote, literally “warm seed,” a pungent annual herb probably indigenous to Mexico (a prerequisite in a pot of black beans), is also added with parsley and cilantro to cook with pork and baby white beans, chicken or even shrimp as a stew. The thickener is masa.

Mole de Almendra : The sauce is based on toasted almonds, chile ancho and spices, such as cloves, cinnamon and sesame seeds. It is served with grilled or boiled game or chicken.

Here is a recipe for Quintana’s favorite mole: Mole Coloradito, especially good with rice seasoned with cilantro or chepil (an herb from Oaxaca) and corn tortillas. The sauce may be reduced until thick to use as a spread on fried tortillas or topped with salad ingredients to make tostada.

MOLE COLORADITO WITH SHRIMP

Mixed Vegetables

Boiled Shrimp

12 ancho chiles, washed, seeded and roasted

10 chilcosle chiles, guajillos or dried red New Mexico or California chiles (pasilla or poblano), washed, seeded and roasted

1 cup lard or oil

1 ripe plantain, peeled and cut up

6 whole cloves

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 1/2 tablespoons crumbled cinnamon stick

1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

2 medium white onions, peeled and roasted

12 cloves garlic, peeled and roasted

4 medium tomatoes, roasted

10 tomatillos, husked and roasted

2 tablespoons chile seeds, roasted

Reserved shrimp broth from Boiled Shrimp

2 slices onion

1/2 cup Mexican chocolate (with cinnamon) or semisweet baking chocolate to taste

1 teaspoon crushed fresh oregano

Salt

Prepare Mixed Vegetables and Boiled Shrimp, reserving broth. Soak roasted ancho and chilcosle chiles in salted water 30 minutes. Drain.

Heat 1/2 cup lard in medium saucepan. Saute plantain, cloves and peppercorns, cinnamon and sesame seeds. Place sauteed mixture in food processor or blender. Add onions, garlic, tomatoes, tomatillos, drained chiles and chile seeds and puree to heavy paste form. Strain through sieve, adding small amount shrimp broth to facilitate straining.

Heat remaining 1/2 cup lard in heavy pot or clay pot. Add onion slices and brown. Remove and discard. Add 1/2 cup strained sauce. When sauce begins to bubble, add remaining sauce. Simmer 1 hour or until sauce renders fat. Stir in chocolate and oregano. Season to taste with salt. Simmer 1 hour longer, stirring occasionally.

Add strained Mixed Vegetables and Boiled Shrimp to sauce. Simmer 40 minutes. If sauce is too thick, add small amount shrimp broth (from Boiled Shrimp) to thin. Serve directly from pot. Makes 8 to 16 servings.

Test Kitchen note: This recipe is complicated and time-involved. The original recipe calls for the vegetables and shrimp to be overcooked.

Mixed Vegetables

1/2 cup oil

1 1/2 medium white onions, peeled and chopped

4 large potatoes, peeled and diced

2 cups chopped green beans

2 cups green peas

1 1/2 cups diced carrots

Salt

3 cups water

Heat oil in medium saucepan. Add onions and brown. Add potatoes, green beans, peas and carrots. Season to taste with salt.

Add water, cover and simmer 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Strain vegetables and set aside for Mole Coloradito, reserving stock for Shrimp.

Boiled Shrimp

Reserved vegetable stock from Mixed Vegetables

1 medium white onion, quartered

1/2 garlic head, peeled or unpeeled, cut across grain

2 pounds jumbo shrimp, peeled, deveined, shells reserved

2 pounds large dried or fresh shrimp, peeled and washed (dried preferred)

Reheat vegetable stock with additional 4 cups water. Add onion, garlic and shrimp shells. Bring to boil. Add fresh and dried shrimp and cook 8 minutes. Cool, then strain shrimp from broth. Reserve shrimp and stock for Mole Coloradito.

Note: Dried shrimp is available in Mexican markets and can be reduced up to 1 cup in the recipe.

Reservations for Quintana’s cooking class at the Century Plaza Hotel and Tower on Nov. 12, 9 a.m. to noon, may be made at (213) 277-2000, ext. 2631. The $70 fee includes lunch with the chef; the class alone costs $50.