We challenged Chris Morocco to recreate Frida Kahlo’s Oaxacan black mole in the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. The catch? He’s doing it blindfolded with only his other senses to guide him.
Director: Chris Principe
Director of Photography: Ben Dewey
Editor: Jared Hutchinson
Talent: Chris Morocco
Guest Judge: Dan Siegel
Director of Culinary Production: Kelly Janke
Senior Creative Producer: Mel Ibarra
Culinary Producer: Stevie Stewart
Line Producer: Joe Buscemi
Associate Producer: Oadhan Lynch
Production Manager: Janine Dispensa
Production Coordinator: Tania Jones
Camera Operator: Caleb Weiss
Audio Engineer: Michael Guggino
Culinary Assistant: Amy Drummond
Post Production Supervisor: Andrea Farr
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Additional Editor: Paul Tael
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Director, Creative Development : Maria Paz Mendez Hodes
Senior Director of Content, Production: Ali Inglese
Senior Director, Creative Development: Dan Siegel
Senior Director, Programming: Jon Wise
VP, Head of Video : June Kim
Director: Chris Principe
Director of Photography: Ben Dewey
Editor: Jared Hutchinson
Talent: Chris Morocco
Guest Judge: Dan Siegel
Director of Culinary Production: Kelly Janke
Senior Creative Producer: Mel Ibarra
Culinary Producer: Stevie Stewart
Line Producer: Joe Buscemi
Associate Producer: Oadhan Lynch
Production Manager: Janine Dispensa
Production Coordinator: Tania Jones
Camera Operator: Caleb Weiss
Audio Engineer: Michael Guggino
Culinary Assistant: Amy Drummond
Post Production Supervisor: Andrea Farr
Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Additional Editor: Paul Tael
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Director, Creative Development : Maria Paz Mendez Hodes
Senior Director of Content, Production: Ali Inglese
Senior Director, Creative Development: Dan Siegel
Senior Director, Programming: Jon Wise
VP, Head of Video : June Kim
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hey, it's Dan, and I'm here for a super secret conversation
00:03about Chris Morocco.
00:05Once again, we're gonna put Chris's super tasting abilities
00:08to the test.
00:09This is Frida Kahlo's Oaxacan black mole.
00:13We're challenging Chris to replicate this exact dish
00:16with every ingredient in just one day.
00:19He'll be able to taste, touch, and smell it,
00:21but at no point will he be allowed to see this dish.
00:25At the end of the day, we'll come back
00:27and taste this final creation, and I'll be the judge.
00:30All right, here we go.
00:46Like barbecue sauce, but with star anise.
00:49Wow, OK.
00:50There's just so much sauce here.
00:53I'm getting a really strong chili component,
00:55but then there's like a fruitiness,
00:57a sweetness, and a tomatoeyness.
00:59I think there's a strong dried herb element in there.
01:03It's like a dried oregano.
01:04There could be some black pepper in there too.
01:07Underneath there, there's like a very firm something.
01:10Oh, OK.
01:12We have a chicken leg,
01:14and I just wanna separate out some of these elements
01:17to see if I missed anything on this plate.
01:19I mean, the sauce itself is just wildly complex.
01:23Oh, it's really good.
01:25It's giving me like a little bit of like cocoa, nuts, seed,
01:29and it's like my worst nightmare
01:30of there being so many different subtle flavors
01:34all piled up.
01:36Let's set that nightmare aside
01:37and let's move over to the chicken.
01:40It's a little bit firmer than I'm expecting.
01:42It's pretty like neutral and chickeny.
01:44It's not really giving me much at all.
01:46The knee bone doesn't really wanna flex that much.
01:49It feels like the chicken was kind of
01:51just sort of straight up roasted
01:52with the sauce ladled over it.
01:55To me, this feels like extremely classic Mexican cooking.
01:59Mole is just an archetypal dish.
02:01They're known for having a lot of ingredients.
02:04This is pretty much a worst case scenario.
02:08Dear diary.
02:09So I'm thinking for nut, it's peanut, almond.
02:12Seed-wise, pepitas, sesame seeds.
02:16I think there is a dried chili element.
02:20I think ancho, pasilla, chipotle.
02:23I need all of those chilies to kind of work together.
02:26I could put cocoa powder
02:28and then for protein, chicken leg quarters.
02:31I've got 25 things on this list.
02:33Given my track record of being a solid B2C student,
02:37we could be looking at a 40-ingredient dish here, no problem.
02:43So somebody's gonna shop for these ingredients
02:45and bring them back and I'll have my first shot.
02:49Okay, so ingredients are here.
02:55There's so many things.
02:56It's a little bit head-spinning
02:58to see it all laid out like this.
03:00Why don't we toast off some chilies
03:02and get them rehydrating?
03:04Toast off nuts, seeds, spices, sweat it out aromatics.
03:08Tomato will be one of the last things that goes in.
03:10Rehydrated chilies need to be pureed,
03:12added to the sauce at some point,
03:14and bring it all together.
03:15Then not least of all is our friend, Mr. Chicken.
03:18We may just throw this one in the oven.
03:21Where we're gonna start is pick a nice mix of dried chilies.
03:24Pasilla, morita, ancho, guajillo.
03:28The seeds get a little bit bitter.
03:30You gotta get all that plus the stem out of there.
03:33Pasilla is gonna give me some of the leathery notes.
03:36Morita is gonna give me smokiness and heat.
03:40Ancho is gonna give me fruitiness
03:42and kind of like medium complexity.
03:44And guajillo is gonna kind of give me bulk
03:46without a ton of heat.
03:49I'm toasting the chilies, deepens their flavor a little bit.
03:53You see them kind of like changing shape a little bit
03:56as they heat up.
03:57But I'm just thinking like a number of things
03:58feel like they need to be toasted off here
04:00and why not the chilies as well?
04:02If you were to blend them up right now,
04:04they would stay in distinct pieces,
04:06kind of like chili flakes added to a dressing,
04:09but instead we're hydrating them
04:11so that when we puree them,
04:12they turn into a relatively smooth sauce.
04:15Next step, let's think about toasting some nuts.
04:20You know, toasting in a skillet,
04:21you do it because it's faster.
04:23I'm trying to push this process along
04:25just because we have so many ingredients to get through.
04:28And then let's move on to sesame seeds.
04:30I felt the texture of seeds
04:33and I feel like the body of the sauce
04:35was blitzed out nuts and seeds.
04:39How's the accuracy going?
04:41Recipe is fine.
04:42Yeah?
04:43Yeah, recipe is fine.
04:44Your voice was really high when you said that.
04:44Yeah, no, I hit a falsetto.
04:47Dan's shoot got canceled in India,
04:49so now he's just like around,
04:51like kind of just like a bitter teenager
04:54whose like house party kind of fell through.
04:57All right, so pepitas,
04:58more commonly or less commonly known as pumpkin seeds.
05:03So coriander and cumin seeds.
05:05Coriander adds like a real citrusy note.
05:08Cumin is just like earthiness.
05:11If the chicken is cooked on the stovetop
05:14and cooked some amount of the way in the sauce,
05:17but a sauce with that level of viscosity to it
05:21is gonna wanna stick and burn.
05:23Whereas throwing it into the oven is a little bit random,
05:26but maybe appropriate.
05:28It's going in at 425.
05:31I think like when in doubt, go with like white onion,
05:33especially for Mexican cuisine.
05:35This is gonna be for the aromatic base of the sauce.
05:41All right, I'm just gonna let that go for a minute
05:42while I chop up some garlic.
05:45Onion and garlic make the world go around.
05:47I'm gonna grind up some of these spices.
05:50So I'm gonna use roughly half
05:53and I'm just gonna grind them up.
05:54So that's the cumin and coriander.
05:56This is dried Mexican oregano.
05:58Do I wanna add the cocoa powder now?
06:00Maybe, right?
06:02I feel like that is probably the most common form
06:04of like chocolate added to a mole.
06:07So this is traditional passata,
06:09just a concentrated tomato puree.
06:12The tomato is gonna help bring up some of the acidity.
06:15There's also like a sensation of kind of tomatoeyness,
06:18like a really soft form of acid.
06:21I want it to be really cooked out
06:23till the fat is practically separating.
06:27Tastes good.
06:28Even the cocoa, it's like very integrated in there.
06:31I think this aromatic base is kind of ready to go.
06:34So there are chilies.
06:36You can see the liquid that's coming off of them,
06:38just like how dark it is.
06:40If you're looking for hydration in your ultimate recipe,
06:44it's certainly better than water.
06:45It's like giving you some of that liquid essence
06:47of the chili peppers.
06:48Got some chicken broth.
06:50So I'm gonna do ready to go roasted peanut,
06:53which just had way superior flavor and texture
06:57versus the raw peanut that we tried to kind of rough
07:00and ready in the hot skillet.
07:02It's like, tastes like nothing.
07:03It tastes like, like earwax.
07:06So anyway, I've got a couple tablespoons
07:08of toasted pepitas, toasted sesame seeds as well.
07:12Blitz these things up a little bit
07:14before I introduce the chili,
07:16just so we can start the pureeing process.
07:20There's a little bit of texture,
07:22just that little amount of chili rehydrating liquid
07:25is giving us some heat.
07:27And then the peanut just provides
07:28just like that grounding overall kind of savory depth.
07:32And what peaks out up above is the toasted sesame and pepita.
07:37So I wanna add all of these chilies.
07:40You only live once, right?
07:41Let's see where we get just pureeing this now.
07:46So obviously massive transformation, right?
07:48It's now in this kind of like brick red world.
07:56It's a little intense
07:58and there's not even like any salt in there,
08:00which is not great.
08:01But we also don't have any of our cooked out
08:04aromatic base here.
08:06A lot of our sources of sweetness,
08:08you know, our herbs, our spices
08:10is gonna round out that chili mixture.
08:12Gonna retaste the sauce
08:13now that it's got the aromatic base in it.
08:17It's like we're a long way off guys.
08:19It's too hot, it's too bright.
08:22We need more cocoa powder.
08:24I'm gonna throw some sugar in here.
08:25Just not getting like the sweetness.
08:28I think we're just missing a little bit more pepita
08:31and sesame and even peanut as well.
08:33The more I put cocoa with the sugar
08:36and the more salt in there,
08:38it just keeps pulling the flavor down and down,
08:41deeper, richer in a good way.
08:45I'm a little shaky on the relationship
08:48between the chicken and the sauce in the original dish.
08:50I can imagine like chicken braised in mole,
08:53which was not what I experienced.
08:55We have this like slightly bright sauce, right?
08:59Technique that I've seen,
09:00but I've never personally attempted before
09:03is called scalding a sauce.
09:04So like basically like you heat a new pot of oil
09:07and you put your puree into that pot
09:10as a way of deepening and melding the flavors.
09:14Whoa.
09:16Danger.
09:18F***.
09:21Anyway, I think that's like,
09:23that's enough like innovation for the day.
09:26I'm thinking it's chicken with the sauce.
09:29I'm thinking it's chicken with the sauce on top
09:31and then nothing else.
09:33This is my first attempt at chicken mole.
09:37I mean, it's like, look,
09:39there's an honesty to it, right?
09:42Ah, scores.
09:44Ingredients, 50.
09:47Technique, 50.
09:50Appearance, 65.
09:54And taste, I mean, I'll give this like a 60.
09:57It's bringing me more to like spicy peanut sauce.
09:59It's in the same universe,
10:01but I think I could have done better.
10:03All right, here are my actual scores.
10:05Fascinating.
10:06I mean, this is honestly like significantly better
10:09than I expected.
10:10As much as I want to sit here and expound,
10:12why don't we just taste the original dish again
10:14and then have a conversation about it?
10:18Heavy is the head that wears the mask, you know?
10:20All right, here we go.
10:23Gosh, it's like, it's a sweetness.
10:25This is just a sweeter, cleaner flavor,
10:28and I'm really getting pops of sesame seed in there.
10:32Compared to what peanut did in my version,
10:34it's staying very faint.
10:35The peanut could come out entirely.
10:37Wonder if we can take the pepita out as well.
10:40This question of like warm spices,
10:43I don't know, there could be cinnamon in the spice mixture,
10:46or you could be using like Mexican chocolate,
10:48which would have cinnamon in it.
10:50It's so aromatic,
10:51but I feel like I'm kind of like I'm missing it.
10:54So brightness,
10:55I am wondering about a blistered tomato in there.
10:58Maybe the onion as well.
11:01I mean, certainly a technique that I see elsewhere
11:03in Mexican cuisine.
11:05I don't know.
11:06There's still like this question of like the interplay
11:07between the chicken and the sauce.
11:10I think this chicken is really firm.
11:12A lot of like unrendered fat under the skin.
11:15It's not like brazy shreddy.
11:17You know, it's kind of driving me crazy.
11:21I have some meaningful thoughts.
11:22I don't know that it's like gonna quite get me there,
11:24but I think I'm good.
11:27Here are my ingredients for this round.
11:29The main addition here is instead of cocoa powder,
11:33Mexican hot chocolate, right?
11:35Which has got, cinnamon's not listed,
11:38but it says artificial flavor,
11:40and God, I hope there's cinnamon in there.
11:43Only Abuelita knows what's actually in there.
11:47I'm gonna try a different technique
11:48in terms of building the sauce.
11:50Blistering some tomatoes,
11:53quartered onion, whole cloves of garlic in their skin,
11:57a little coating of oil on these
11:58to try to get more depth on them
12:01and see if we can get some real nice char.
12:03Going to all pasilla and ancho.
12:06I just worry that the marita just get real hot.
12:09So I'm hoping we can pull the flavor down.
12:12I don't think I'm gonna toast them this time.
12:14I'm just getting them rehydrated.
12:16So we are toasting sesame seeds.
12:19It really develops so much more character.
12:22This is cumin, coriander, and black pepper.
12:25Veg are done.
12:26I'm gonna transfer them to the blender.
12:29I'm gonna throw the chicken on that sheet tray,
12:31and I'm just gonna broil it.
12:33So I can throw some of these cloves of garlic in there.
12:37Chilies are going in here.
12:38I need to get some of our spices in,
12:41as well as our oregano, sesame seeds.
12:46Still a little on the spicy side, to be honest.
12:49Wouldn't suck to have a little bit more liquid here.
12:54Flavors are a little jangly, a little hot.
12:56Some sugar will definitely be appreciated here.
12:59I just need to get this hot
13:01where I can whisk some chocolate into it.
13:03Hershey's cocoa powder, it's not super chocolatey.
13:08I don't hate this consistency.
13:09I like the way it's kind of piling up.
13:11So I'm adding the whole sesame seeds now.
13:13Let's see where we're at.
13:15Honestly, it's unbelievable, like what a difference
13:18that solid Mexican chocolate makes.
13:20I don't feel anything about this chicken.
13:23I do feel something about this sauce.
13:25I love it.
13:26This is my second attempt at the dish.
13:28I think we got a little bit closer,
13:30and that's what this is all about.
13:32Ingredients, God, I'd love to be at a 70.
13:34Technique, we changed a lot.
13:37I'm gonna go with 70 again.
13:38Appearance, we were at a 90 before.
13:42Wow, I'm gonna just like stick with 90.
13:45And taste, I guess we'll find out.
13:46I would love to believe that I got to an 80.
13:49Very different feel to this.
13:51Very different composition of the sauce.
13:53I think I'm ready to present this to the judge
13:55and find out what I actually got.
13:59Why is Dan moving over into the judge's position?
14:02Come on, Chris.
14:03It's been me the whole time.
14:04Stop, it has not.
14:06It has been me the whole time,
14:07and you just didn't realize it.
14:09This is a free train headed in one direction.
14:11Chris, may I present to you
14:12Frida Kahlo's Oaxacan Black Mole.
14:16Is that a f***ing turkey?
14:18This is not a giant turkey, but a turkey nonetheless,
14:21which is something that's common in Oaxacan cooking.
14:23I totally misjudged the size.
14:25That's so crazy.
14:26What are we looking at here?
14:27I mean.
14:28Well, yeah, okay.
14:29What'd you like?
14:30Find the smallest chicken you could get
14:31and put it in here.
14:33Apparently this was the dish
14:34that was served at Frida's wedding.
14:36We'll give Frida credit for this one,
14:38though she probably didn't make it herself.
14:39But how did you prepare your turkey?
14:41Sorry, chicken.
14:42I prepared my turkey using chicken.
14:45Yeah.
14:45Threw the chicken under the broiler.
14:47Okay.
14:48The whole turkey, which we broke down into parts,
14:50goes into a pot of water along with some aromatics
14:55and basically spends its entire time cooking in there.
14:58I mean, it's just waffling in the middle
15:00of like cooked but not fully tender,
15:03surprisingly kind of bland,
15:06whereas like the sauce is like the event.
15:08We had a blend of three chilies in this dish,
15:10the cascabel, mulatto, and pasilla chili.
15:13Okay, what did you do to these chilies?
15:15I stemmed and seeded the chilies
15:16and then rehydrated them in hot water.
15:18Okay.
15:19So the chilies are toasted.
15:21I toasted them dry when I toasted them.
15:24Did she toast in oil?
15:26Big ingredient drop here, lard.
15:28Lard is all over this recipe.
15:30Again, we have aromatic vegetables going into that lard
15:34and then the tomatillos are added raw.
15:36Okay.
15:37Obviously.
15:40I roasted my tomato, onion, and garlic
15:43just for what it's worth.
15:45Oh, great.
15:46That's good for a few points.
15:48So then I think you broke this recipe down
15:49a little more than it needed to.
15:51What happens?
15:52Put the knife down, Chris.
15:55One other thing about the texture of your sauce
15:57that's probably been driving you a little bit crazy,
16:00a big part of the thickening agent
16:02is the addition of sort of like a stale tortilla
16:06in addition to bread that is put into this.
16:10One of the other categories of spice, I'll say,
16:13if we're just looking up at our ingredients here
16:15and doing a quick like X, X, X, X, X,
16:17which we might be doing right now.
16:18No, there's not room because there's two of us in frame.
16:21I'll move over.
16:22There's two of us in frame so there isn't room.
16:23Can we get the Xs?
16:24There's not room.
16:25Can we get a sound effect for the Xs?
16:26Graphic person, there's just not room.
16:28Okay.
16:29Let's give these a taste.
16:32It's honestly incredible you got anything out of that.
16:34It tastes like a thousand things at once.
16:35Yeah.
16:36Let's try a bite of yours.
16:37Okay.
16:39Okay, first of all, I like yours better.
16:41That's not what we're here for.
16:43Big hit to the face here.
16:44Yeah, mine's like keyed up.
16:45It's like-
16:46Every spice is turned up.
16:48The heat is turned up.
16:49Everything that's in there kind of comes through.
16:51Report card.
16:54Ingredients.
16:55You gave yourself a 70.
16:58This one's going to hurt a little bit.
16:59I'm going to give you a 57.
17:02Don't panic.
17:03That one is in the low range.
17:05Going by what was missed here.
17:07It's well-learned, but still.
17:09I can't have the commenters
17:10looking at all the things
17:12and then being like he was too generous.
17:13Oh, God forbid that people think you're nice.
17:18Moving on to technique.
17:19You gave yourself a 70.
17:20We'll give you a 70 also.
17:22The cooking of the meat, the toasting, and the lard.
17:26We'll give you a 70 on that.
17:27Appearance, you gave yourself a 90.
17:28We're going to give you a 92.
17:30Really, the big difference is just being like size
17:33and the seeds on top.
17:34And lastly, taste.
17:35You gave yourself an 80.
17:36I'm going to give you a 75.
17:38Yeah, that's fair.
17:39They were pretty substantially different,
17:41but it's delicious.
17:42I would sit down and eat this for dinner anytime.
17:45Overall, that takes you to a 74.
17:47That's a solid C.
17:48Yes.
17:49I think you walk away saying,
17:49hey, I learned a lot.
17:51Mole is hard.
17:52You did really great.
17:53This was virtually impossible.
17:55I love you.
17:56I'm going to catch a train.
17:57Thank you so much for covering.
17:59Honestly, I feel fine.
18:01You know, there's a lot going on in there.
18:03A lot of new information,
18:05a lot of new techniques in there for me.
18:07The fact of it being Frida Kahlo's recipe
18:09just adds to the mystique
18:12and the seemingly, you know, kind of randomness of it.
18:14But that's okay.
18:15You know, it's like, it's her POV.
18:17And I certainly learned a lot
18:19from going through the exercise.
18:21I have to run from my train now.
18:24Oh, look what I did.
18:25Look what I did so I can see it whenever I want.
18:27There's Todd.
18:28There's you.
18:29Dan, I'll never wear that sweatshirt.
18:31A loyal follower of Guru.
18:32I will never wear that sweatshirt at work again.
18:35I hope you're happy.
18:37And you dictated my choice of all black today.