About our Chili Con Chocolate
Oaxaca is famous for its succulent, rich molés. They are complex sauces flavored with, among other things, sesame and other seeds, almonds, pecans, lemon juice, herbs, roasted peanuts, tomatoes, garlic, onions, carrots, cinnamon sticks, cloves, oregano, sugar, chicken broth, chilies of every description (chilhuacle, pasilla, guajillo, etc.).
Pre-Hispanic ingredients like chocolate, squash, tomatoes and the immense variety of chilies, along with Spanish and Arabic spices, are essentials in Oaxacan cuisine.
molés, which vary in spiciness, are incredibly elaborate and laborious, sometimes requiring more than 30 different ingredients. They are served with chicken, pork or beef.
There are at least seven basic varieties of molé. Here are nine: negro (black), amarillo (yellow), coloradito (reddish), almendrado (with almonds), verde (green), rojo (red), Manchamanteles (tablecloth stainer) and chichilo negro.
molé de Castillo, which is different from others, is prepared with an abundance of oregano, ground black pepper and chili guajillo - ground together to make a paste. Slow-toasted chunks of regional bread are incorporated into a chicken broth with the spice paste to give it body (instead of being thickened with cornmeal as many molés are).
The coloradito, with its brick-red color of roasted chilies, sautéed spices, and ground, charred bread, is elusively spicy and slightly tangy & sweet, a little smoky, with the fullness of toasted grain and a bit more pungent than the negro or the amarillo, which is especially mild, with its clean chili flavor, a strong top note of cumin and a slightly oily texture.
Most ubiquitous is the molé negro, composed of 20 or more ingredients, rich with chopped chocolate and burnt grain, undertones of toasted chili and wave upon wave of textured spice and heat.
Café Chocolate’s Chili Con Chocolate offers as close an interpretation of the Oaxacan molé as possible, using a generous addition of pure chocolate complete with cocoa butter instead of cocoa powder. It gives our Chili con Chocolate a delicious rich meat-like flavor without the use of any meat. A wonderful vegan dish to satisfy the 10,000 taste buds in one’s palate!