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Mole is the dish that separates a Mexican kitchen that is cooking from one that is trying. A true mole from scratch can take days. It can call for 30 ingredients or more. It cannot be rushed, it cannot be faked, and when it is done right, there is nothing else like it.

The word comes from the Nahuatl molli, which simply means sauce, but there is nothing simple about what lands on the plate. A mole is built in stages. Dried chiles are toasted, soaked and pureed. Nuts and seeds are ground. Spices are bloomed. Chocolate, fruit, bread or tortillas go in as thickeners. The whole thing is cooked low and slow until every ingredient loses itself in the others. What comes out is a sauce that changes with every bite, starting sweet or smoky, turning earthy, finishing with a slow heat that builds and fades. Most diners know mole poblano, the dark, brick-red sauce from Puebla that shows up on enchiladas across the country. That is one mole out of hundreds.