Mexican cuisine is a lot more diverse than people realize.

Now I love a good Tex-Mex restaurant. My advise is stay away from the chains, nothing personal, but the whole-in-the-wall, Mom and Pop restaurants cook food that has one thing the chains just lack, passion for their heritage.

One thing I love is a great sauce called mole (MOE-lay). The story behind the sauce is that a nun of the Santa Rosa convent created it for a visiting archbishop. Her aim was to fuse Indian and Spanish ingredients to create a sauce that came close to heaven. I think she came pretty close. Now one of the most common misconceptions about mole is it often gets a bad rap as “the chocolate sauce” for duck or chicken. This is far from the truth. Moles do contain cacao beans, which do go into the production of chocolate, however, cacao beans are really spicy and a little bitter before we dump all the sugar in there to make chocolate. In old Mexico, cacao beans where served more as a savory dish than as a dessert. Mole range is color and flavors as much as cars in makes and models. They can be herb-based and green to dark black with pasilla chiles.

It seems every state in Mexico has it’s own variation and favorite mole. The southern state of Oaxaca is know as the “land of seven moles”, each one complex and rich in heritage. I’ve seen mole recipes that vary from very simple to ingredient lists that go well into the high twenties. In general they usually contains some nuts, cacao bean, and chiles. I love to break tradition and love to experiment with different sauces. This one actually was a mistake when I asked a cook to hand me one thing and I received another. The results turned out great and I’ve been using this sauce for duck, chicken or pork. A lot of times when you order mole in a restaurant here it is usually chicken that has been cooked or stewed in the mole and while that does give the chicken great flavor it also tends to cook the life out of the chicken too. I prefer to spoon my mole over an item hot of the grill.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Mango Mole

Serves 4

1 mango, peeled and diced (watch for the pit)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 / 4 onion, fine diced

1 guajillo chile, stemmed and seeded

1 tablespoon chipotle puree

1 cup mango puree (you’ll need about 4-5 mangos)

pinch cinnamon

pinch clove

pinch allspice

1 cup chicken stock or broth (will broth make it taste different… yes)

1 tablespoon butter

4 pork tenderloins

kosher salt

black pepper

Heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion, guajillo chile, and chipotle puree, sauté for about 2 minutes. And the mango puree, chicken stock, cinnamon, clove and allspice. Bring to as boil, stirring and then remove from heat. Transfer to a blender (be careful) and blend till smooth. Now we are going to do something that is very common with sauces in Mexico. We are going to cook it. I know. “What did I just do?” Well we just really just got the flavors together, now to bind them. Heat the whole butter until it starts to foam (it will not take long) and pour the mole from the blender into the skillet, (again, be careful). Stir to “sear” the sauce. Let it cook for about 3 minutes then set it aside while you grill the pork.

Just before you start to spoon it on the pork, add the diced mango in the sauce. I like to serve this with a coconut rice and foie gras- refried pinto beans, but then again I like lobster jelly too.

September is the best time to be in New Mexico. Well, it’s my favorite.Fall is the time for the green chiles. At the store around here you can get Anaheim chiles, they are a cousin to the famous New Mexico green chile called, “Big Jim”. Now don’t get me wrong, the Anaheim is a great chile. It has a good green vegetable flavor that really gets improved with roasting over an open flame. In fact, I feel most fresh chiles benefit from the flame. Dry chiles always need to be awakened with a little trip to the sauté pan (but, that’s another article). Just like grapes used to make wine, chiles also draw a lot of their character from the earth in which they grow. I don’t know what it is in the soil down in New Mexico, but it really shines in their chiles.

Hatch, New Mexico is world famous for it’s green chiles. They have a big festival every fall to rejoice in the harvest. They roast the chiles along the road in huge drums made with chicken wires and use the same torch that hot air balloon pilots use to fly their mammoth ships. This thing sounds like a jet getting ready to take off and the smell. There is nothing I can think of as comforting as the aroma of fresh flame roasted chiles. The perfume just seems to be everywhere driving you crazy. Now please don’t be scared that chiles are too spicy. Yes too many chiles in a recipe can be too spicy. Just like salt or any other seasoning, too much is a bad thing. Chiles bring a great depth of flavor to many recipes you might not even think of adding them to.

Then again, that’s my goal with this column, to get you to think outside the box. How about green chile-pecan apple pie? Green chile-blue cheese bread pudding? There really is not a limit to what you could come up with. Green chiles add an exciting edge to sometimes boring recipes. So next time your at the store, grab a few chile, turn on the stove, start roasting and if you’re like me close your eyes and your standing in New Mexico.

Green Chile-Cheese Macaroni
Serves 4

2 Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and diced
2 cups macaroni, cooked al dente
1 cup heavy whipping cream
½ cup diced cheddar cheese
pinch of white pepper
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
1 ounce clarified butter

In a large sauté pan, heat the butter and add the macaroni. Add the rest of the ingredients, although you may want to hold back half of the green chiles. You can always add more if you desire.
Turn the heat to medium and let the sauce reduce while you stir. The cheese will help thicken the dish. You really can reduce it to the consistency you like. If it is too thick, add a little more heavy cream or milk.

You can either have this as a main course (nothing like a big bowl of macaroni and cheese) or do as we do at the restaurant sometimes, as a side dish. I like to serve either roasted duck or chicken with this adult version mac-n-cheese.

So, until next time, as Santa Fe Chef Mark Miller would say, “eat more chiles!”

Donald Burns is a chef & writer who has a long love affair with the old west and cooking.