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Quick Mole Sauce, Aka I Never Thought I'd Like It, But It Really is Good and I Don't Taste the Chocolate Sauce

A quick tomato-based mole sauce with garlic, onion, oregano, chili powder, cumin, allspice, salt, and unsweetened chocolate.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Oregano and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 983 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Quick Mole Sauce, Aka I Never Thought I'd Like It, But It Really is Good and I Don't Taste the Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat garlic in oil until it starts to sizzle.

  2. Add onion by grating it directly into the pot using a hand grater.

  3. Cook onion for a minute or two to sweeten.

  4. Add tomato sauce and heat through.

  5. Add seasonings and chocolate, then stir constantly until the chocolate melts into sauce.

Keep warm

  1. Reduce heat to warm and keep sauce warm until enchiladas are ready.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Oregano + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Tomato + oreganotop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,767 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomato sauce
Forms the liquid base and body of the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it cooks softly.
Unsweetened chocolate
Adds richness, bitterness and a smooth, dark body to the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as it cooks in oil.
Dark chili powder
Contributes warm, earthy heat and deep color to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the chocolate melts into sauce. Chocolate can scorch on the hot bottom of the pot and turn bitter or grainy. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so it melts smoothly into the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, olive, onion, tomato, sauce, oregano, cumin):

  1. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Basilbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, olive, onion, tomato, sauce, oregano, cumin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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