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Some dishes are a labor of love, requiring dozens of ingredients, many detailed steps and long cooking times. Maybe this is why grandma-style food rules — it’s not just homey and satisfying, but perhaps more importantly, someone else has done all the hard work. Nothing is as delicious as a Toulouse-style cassoulet (zhuzhed-up pork and beans, basically) because it takes three days to prepare.

Mole is another complicated dish that’s worth the trouble. The pre-Hispanic sauce combines an array of dried chiles, fruits, spices, chocolate and various seeds and nuts to make a velvety backdrop to everything from roasted turkey to plain rice. Mole poblano, the OG and best known mole, originated in Puebla, Mexico, though Oaxaca boasts seven traditional styles of mole (there are more than 50 types in all). I love roasted winter squash with spicy flavors, so here I’ve paired the sauce with roasted pumpkin rolled in fried homemade tortillas (frying them first helps them hold up in the sauce).

I’ve seen one mole recipe that calls for animal crackers, some that include peanut butter and another that uses white chocolate chips. Every cook has their own secrets and tricks, and I’m no different — I add a crumbled ginger snap and an hoja santa leaf for extra panache. Adding your own touch is what makes mole so magical.

OK, yes, the black and orange of the sauce and pumpkin are a bit on the nose for October, but I’m kind of into it. Best of all, it gives me an excuse to focus energy on the process of toasting, grinding and slowly simmering a ton of wonderful ingredients together like a legit bruja (I swear the mole tastes better cooked in a tiny cauldron). To me, cooking in this way, imbuing each addition to the pot with intention, is a bit like casting a spell. Makes 12 enmoladas

Note: This recipe makes about 4 cups of mole, so you’ll have lots left over. It freezes wonderfully.

Ingredients

Mole

4 ancho chiles, stems and seeds removed

4 guajillo chiles, stems and seeds removed

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 cinnamon stick (3-4 inches long), broken into pieces

2 cloves (or a fat pinch of clove powder)

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon Mexican oregano

¼ cup raisins

4 dried figs

¼ cup chopped almonds, hazelnuts or peanuts

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

¼ medium-sized onion

1 clove garlic

1 plum tomato, halved lengthwise

1 small (4-inches across) hoja santa leaf (or ¼ teaspoon aniseseed)

3 tablespoons piloncillo/panela (unrefined cane sugar) or packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips

1 tablespoon masa harina (or 1 corn tortilla torn to pieces)

1 ginger snap or molasses cookie, crumbled

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Salt and pepper

Taquitos

1 small pumpkin or other winter squash (~2-3 pounds)

Cooking oil

1 small onion, thinly sliced

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon Mexican oregano

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Salt and pepper

¼ cup chopped cilantro plus more for garnish

12 corn tortillas

Crumbled cotija cheese, crema and toasted unsalted pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds) for serving

Instructions

1. Make the mole: In a dry saucepan over medium heat, toast the dried chiles, spices, dried fruit, nuts and sesame seeds, stirring occasionally, until pliable and fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to the bowl of a blender (or a molcajete or mortar and pestle).
2. In the same dry pot, char the onion, garlic and tomato until blackened and lightly blistered on all sides. Add them to the blender. Drag the hoja santa leaf across the hot pan a few times to warm it up and then add it to the blender with the sugar, chocolate chips, masa (or tortilla) and cookie. Pour in the broth and blend on high speed until completely smooth, about 3-4 minutes.
3. Pour the mole back into the saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until the sauce has thickened and darkened a bit, stirring occasionally and adding additional broth or water as needed to keep the mole a spoonable consistency, about an hour. You shouldn’t be able to taste raw onion or garlic and the spices will have mellowed. Taste and adjust salt and sugar as needed (I use homemade chicken stock that’s unsalted, so I have to add quite a bit of seasoning at the end).
4. While the mole is cooking, preheat the oven to 425 F and drizzle a baking dish with oil. Cut the pumpkin or squash in half, scoop out the seeds and sprinkle the cut side with a few pinches of salt. Roast, cut side down, until the tip of a knife easily pierces the squash’s flesh, about 40-50 minutes.
5. In the last 15 minutes or so of the squash roasting, heat a medium-sized skillet over medium heat and drizzle on a little oil. Cook the sliced onions, stirring occasionally, until they’re softened and translucent, about 4-5 minutes.
6. When the squash is cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh into a bowl and roughly mash-cut it with a spoon — you want some chunky texture but it should be spoonable. Fold in the cooked onions, spices and cilantro until evenly mixed.
7. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 F and add a few large spoonfuls of the cooked mole to the baking dish (same one you used for the squash), spreading the sauce to coat the bottom of the dish evenly.
8. Using the same pan as you used for the onions, heat up another drizzle of oil and lightly fry the tortillas on both sides, one at a time, until softened and pliable, about 5 seconds per side. Add more oil as needed to keep the tortillas well lubricated, but shake off the excess oil as you remove the tortillas from the pan.
9. Swab a tortilla through the mole to coat on both sides, then lay the sauced tortilla in the baking dish. Spoon about ¼ cup of the pumpkin mixture into the tortilla, then roll it up into a slim taquito. Slide it over to the edge of the pan and repeat with the remaining tortillas.
10. Spoon more mole over the top of the enmoladas and return the pan to the oven until the centers of the enmoladas are heated through, about 10-15 minutes. (Enmoladas are usually sauced and served as they’re rolled, but these taste better when fully warmed.)
11. Serve with cotija, a dribble of crema and a sprinkle of pepitas.

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/17/recipe-superabundant-hispanic-heritage-pumpkin-enmoladas/