Corn tortillas are perfect to eat with any mole sauce. But did you know that they are often an ingredient in some mole recipes? Similar to adding tortillas to soups to thicken them, tortillas can be added while cooking mole for another layer of flavor. Corn tortillas are one of many marvels of the Mexican diet, but that is another story. Let’s talk about tortillas and mole.
Eating Tortillas with Mole
Any worthwhile mole sauce can be enjoyed simply with tortillas. The extraordinary flavor of a well-developed sauce shines when eaten with the humble tortilla. You can use the tortilla as a utensil to scoop up every last bit of rich sauce. Don’t let a drop go to waste.
You can turn that tortilla and sauce into something a little magical by making mole enchiladas. A lightly fried tortilla, folded into the sauce, sprinkled with a little queso fresco (a crumbly Mexican cheese) is a delight. If you want to go a step further, you can fill the tortillas with shredded chicken and roll them in sauce, top with sliced onions and you will have delicious chicken mole enchiladas.
A tortilla on the side or used for enchiladas may seem pretty obvious, but most people aren’t familiar with using corn tortillas as an ingredient in recipes. As I mentioned before, they are great to put in the broth of your soup while it’s cooking. They break down over time and add a hearty thickness to your soup.
Corn Tortillas as an Ingredient in Recipes
Mole recipes sometimes call for tortillas or bread to use as a thickening agent and add extra flavor. This is especially true when making certain mole recipes. A recipe may call for burnt tortillas. Yes, burnt. The corn tortillas are blackened on the comal before being added to the sauce. This adds depth of flavor with charred notes and deepens the color of the sauce.
Next time you are using corn tortillas, think of all the potential that exists with this ancestral ingredient.