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Fig Leaf Gourds in Homemade Mole Sauce
4.9 from 141 votes

Fig Leaf Gourds in Homemade Mole Sauce

This recipe pairs tender fig leaf gourds with a deeply flavored homemade mole sauce made from a complex blend of toasted chilies, seeds, nuts, spices, fruits, and vegetables. The mole sauce is rich and layered, simmered and blended to develop smoothness and depth. The gourds and accompanying vegetables provide mild earthiness that contrasts the spicy, nutty sauce, offering a distinctive ingredient combination with traditional preparation methods.

Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
6 hrs 13 mins
Additional Time
12 hrs
Total Time
18 hrs 28 mins
Servings: 2 servings
Course: Condiments
Cuisine: Mexican

Ingredients

Homemade Mole Sauce:
  • 48 grams guajillo chile minced, stemmed, seeded
  • 54 grams Pasilla chile minced, stemmed, seeded
  • 48 grams pumpkin seeds
  • 70 grams almond
  • 5 piece avocado leaf
  • 2 piece tortilla
  • 1 kilogram tomato
  • 135 grams white onion
  • 10 grams garlic
  • 115 grams tomatillo
  • 225 grams green tomato
  • 210 grams plantain
  • 4 piece allspice
  • 2 piece clove
  • 1 gram oregano dried
  • 1.5 cinnamon sticks
  • 235 grams panela
  • 2 liters water
  • 200 grams vegetable oil
For Serving:
  • 4 fig leaf gourd tender
  • 500 grams mole sauce homemade
  • 2 piece chayote
  • 4 piece zucchini green
  • 4 piece zucchini yellow
  • 5 grams basil sprout
  • 10 grams sesame seeds toasted
  • 1 piece tlayuda cut into triangles, crisp
  • 1 liter water

Instructions

Homemade Mole Sauce
    Cup of Yum
  1. Toast the tomato, green tomato, tomatillo, onion, garlic, and plantain, including the skins.
  2. On the side, toast the spices and the avocado leaves and blend them with the toasted onion and garlic.
  3. Dissolve the panela in 2 liters/ 8½ cups of hot water.
  4. In a pot, heat half of the oil and fry chiles, almonds, pumpkin seeds, and tortillas cut into strips over high heat. Blend this sauté with the panela water.
  5. In a clay pot, heat the other half of the oil and fry the mixture of spices, avocado leaves, onion, and garlic. Add the chile sauce. Cook during 10 minutes over high heat.
  6. Blend the tomato, green tomato, tomatillo, and plantain, without skins, and add the blend to the mole once it is cooked.
  7. Leave it for three hours more over high heat and stir continuously.
  8. Blend for 12 minutes using the Thermomix and pass it through a strainer with a fine mesh.
  9. Let it rest at room temperature and refrigerate it during 12 hours once it’s cold.
  10. Reheat with 1 more liter/ 4¼ cups of water for 2 or 3 hours over high heat. Stir constantly.
For Serving:
  1. Cut the tlayuda into triangles using scissors, then brown it in a pan over high heat. Move it constantly until the edges are crisp.
  2. Cut the green zucchini, yellow zucchini, and chayote into 1-mm-thick (0.04 inch) slices.
  3. Blanch the slices in boiling salted water for 30 seconds and cool in a cold bain-marie.
  4. Heat the homemade mole sauce and season it.
  5. Cut the gourds into 8 wedges.
  6. Blanch them in boiling salted water for 2 minutes.
  7. Remove them and drown them in mole sauce.
  8. Take them out and place 4 wedges per plate.
  9. Make small rolls out of the chayote slices and put them in between the gourds.
  10. Put pumpkin rolls around them.
  11. Add tlayuda triangles to the gourds with homemade mole sauce.
  12. Finish the plate by sprinkling basil sprouts and sesame seeds.

Notes