- [Yia] We're making Mole.

Guatemalan Mole with fried plantains to be exact.

And we're using ingredients that date back thousands of years.

Including one ingredient that's so treasured, it used to be traded like gold.

(upbeat music) You know, I am a little ignorant in this, 'cause when I think mole, automatically I just Mexican food, right?

But you're Guatemalan.

- The Mexican mole ingredients, and some of the techniques are similar.

But the way we combine the ingredients, make it into a different sauce.

And many other mole's are savory, whereas Guatemalan mole, especially Mole De Plátano that we're making today is sweet.

- This dish, Mole De Plátano, is a staple in Guatemala.

In fact, it's one of the country's most important dishes.

Landing on a list of foods considered Intangible Cultural Heritage, by the Guatemalan government.

The list includes four other classic Guatemalan dishes.

Jocón, Kak'ik, Pepián and Pinol.

- This board has all the Guatemalan mole ingredients.

People are often surprised that there's an odd combination of tomatillos, roma tomatoes and chocolate.

If you think about it, it doesn't sound like it works, right?

But once you put it together, it really, really, really works.

- To get this all started, we are gonna char the tomatillos and the tomatoes.

- Yes, then I go in and grab the seeds and start roasting those.

I'm gonna ask you to flip-- - Okay.

- These tomatoes.

Don't be concerned that they are very charred.

In fact, the darker the charring is, the more flavor there is.

And what we are looking to do here is to blister this and to char them.

But also we want them to become mushy.

So while this is roasting, I will throw my roasted seeds into the food mill.

(tapping) Voila, sesame seeds.

- When you crush that in there, I can just smell it.

I mean, I'm over here and I'm smelling the nutty smell.

- Yes, to me, it's nostalgia.

Those ingredients and those flavors, those aromas connect us to our childhood.

So the same process with the pumpkin seeds.

Do the same thing with the cinnamon and then the peppers.

- How far back do some of these ingredient go?

- So Mole's are very ancient preparations.

Ancient native ingredients, combined with ingredients that came when the Spaniards brought their ingredients, culture and their techniques into Latin America.

- The area where we find Guatemala today was once home to the Maya civilization.

To learn about the Maya, we need to go back.

I mean like way back to around 1400 BC.

The Maya were one of the largest indigenous societies in Mesoamerica.

Which is the area stretching from Mexico to Central America.

They live in a pretty concentrated area, covering the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, plus Guatemala, Belize and parts of Honduras and El Salvador.

More than 6 million descendants of the Maya still live in the same area.

Most in Guatemala.

In fact, about 40% of Guatemalans are of Mayan descent.

- After the peppers are roasted, they go into this hot water.

- So you're reconstituting that moisture.

- Yes, I have some that have been soaking here for a while.

You want to let it sit there until they become soft.

- It takes a while to kind of mis en place everything, get everything ready, but now we're gonna blend it all up.

- So everything is gonna go into the blender except for the oil and the chocolate.

We're gonna put in the tomatoes and the tomatillos, the soaked chilies, the raisins and the prunes.

- We put all the dry ingredients in?

- Yes, and a lot of these things are to taste.

And we're gonna add the pepper liquid, and we are ready to go.

(roaring) - This process, it's not done yet, right?

- Yes, we are going to heat the sauce and prepare it to receive the chocolate.

(hissing) Ooh, nice.

- All of it?

- Yes.

And it's bubbling nicely.

And then we're just gonna throw our chocolate right in there and start melting it.

- This chocolate looks different than, like a Hershey's bar, you know.

- That is a very ancient crop.

This is artisan chocolate.

It's the closest to pure chocolate there is.

- In Guatemala, chocolate is a big deal.

It all starts with Cacao.

The Cacao tree is native to Mesoamerica.

Pods from the Cacao tree are filled with beans that are used to make chocolate.

The Maya considered it a sacred food, calling Cacao, "Food of the gods."

Cacao beans were considered so valuable, they were even used as currency.

Most often the Maya turned Cacao into a drink by mixing it with water, chili pepper and corn meal.

And unlike modern chocolate, they didn't add anything sweet.

- This is what you're looking for.

Velvety, smooth.

It's absolutely heaven on earth.

This is what I crave when I am craving something sweet.

Should we fry some plantains?

- Let's do that.

- Okay, as you can see, these plantains are nice and ripe.

- Yeah, they're so tender.

Like you gotta be careful or I'm gonna squish 'em.

(Amalia laughs) - These are very sweet and they're very delicious.

They're ready to go.

- Okay.

- So they can come out.

- So we're gonna start plating this up?

- Yes, I like to plate this partly the traditional way but partly my way as well.

- So you say you like a lot of sauce, right?

- I like a lot of sauce.

What you'd want is to have a little bit of sauce with every bite.

That is definitely a must.

But traditionally people will take sesame seeds and put 'em on the top and then some pumpkin seeds.

So this is the way they would serve it in Guatemala.

- What's the way you would serve it chef?

- The way I would serve it is I would start with the traditional way, and then I would place some strawberries and some mint and raspberries as well.

So there you go.

This is mole with plantains, Amalia style.

- Awesome, let's eat.

- I love this dish because it brings back memories of my time in Antigua, Guatemala.

We used to go to this restaurant on Sundays with my father and the dessert was almost always plantains in mole sauce.

So for me, it's those flavors that remind us of home, that connects us to the culture.

- This is so delicious.

- You saw the process, you know what the ingredients are.

So you start tasting all those ingredients almost simultaneously as you eat it.

And that's what I love about mole.

It's an experience.

- It's one of those bites where you're like, after you're done, you're so ready to go back for another one.

- I'm glad you liked it.

When I left Guatemala, I felt that I had lost part of myself.

So that's one of the reasons why I like to recreate my dishes here, because you know, it allows me to share the culture, the history and of course the delicious food.

And that is fostering tradition.

I don't want those traditions to go away.

Sauce will burn.

- Yep.

- If it jumps on your hand, it will leave a blister.

Although we are pretty tough in the kitchen, 'cause I will stick my hands in an oven sometimes without, you know, gloves.

- Yeah, I always say we've worked in kitchens long enough that we don't have any feelings in our hands or in our hearts anymore (laughs).

(upbeat music)