You can debate the relative worth of different family recipes. You can argue whether turkey or chicken is more proper as the base of the dish. But one thing is without question: La Parrilla Mexican Grill in Middletown serves a gorgeous example of mole poblano.
That’s right, mole poblano — tender shreds of poultry in a rich, dark chocolate sauce.
It’s a classic Mexican dish, inspired (at least according to one legend) by an angel sent from Heaven to save a group of devout nuns from a culinary predicament. Families treasure recipes passed down over the decades. And for restaurants, mole poblano is a kind of touchstone, a menu item rarely seen outside of truly authentic kitchens.
Of course, many American novices stiffen at the mention of chocolate and meat.
“They expect it to be sweeter than it is,” said La Parrilla’s Carmen Ramirez. “But it’s perfect — not too spicy, not too sweet.”
The sauce, you see, depends upon Mexican chocolate, which is semi-sweet at best and quite grainy in texture … and utterly without a “Hershey’s” label. Cooks blend this with onions, garlic, roasted chiles, spices, ground seeds and perhaps a dozen other ingredients into a thick, oozing thing of beauty.
At La Parrilla, the mole seems bitter and faintly sweet on introduction. Soon an earthiness makes itself known — something like dry, dusty cinnamon and other spices parched on cast iron. Behind this the embers of chili emerge, nibbling into the back of your throat. And all the while, a mellower, nutty impression wafts over the rest.
Ramirez explained that the kitchen staff sprinkle a little extra toasted sesame over the dish before sending it out to the dining room. As for the rest of the recipe honed by La Parrilla’s cook, Maria De la Torre, there’s no way of knowing.
“I could ask, but she wouldn’t give it to you,” Ramirez said with a smile. “It’s a family recipe.”
The sauce brings out a dusky, roughhouse character in the meat. Perhaps it hides there, unknown until called to by skilled cooks. More likely it’s a sensation created by mole as it seeps into the chicken.
There are as many ways of presenting mole poblano as there are family recipes (and origin myths, for that matter). At this little Middletown spot they dot it with queso fresco and add zig zag lines of sour cream. These add a creamy sharpness to the whole, without upsetting the perfect balance of bittersweet spice in the sauce.
Mole poblano may be a taste difficult for the timid to acquire. But once over the American puzzlement over chocolate and meat, however, it is impossible not to yearn for the rich, rustic, earthen, acrid, spicy, complexity.
“It is very popular,” Ramirez observed.
Of course, because La Parrilla’s version tastes just like a family recipe. In other words, it is just right.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
