If there’s one shortcoming of Mexican mole sauces, it’s that many of them are not exactly wine-friendly. Mole amarillo, however, is an extreme exception. It’s a bright, sprightly sauce with a nice acidic tang and a heady combination of sunny spices. Amarillo is a perfect riposte to the cold and dark days immediately following the winter solstice.

It also pairs spectacularly with sparkling wines, champagne included. One of our favorite choices is Gruët Brut, a terrific American sparkling wine from New Mexico made by a family with roots in France’s Champagne district (gruetwinery.com). They blend it from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grown at 4,000-5,000 feet of elevation between Albuquerque and Las Cruces, New Mexico. (The company’s Blancs de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs also go well with mole amarillo.) That’s why we like to enjoy mole amarillo with tamales (another holiday tradition) on New Years Eve. We use the basic Tamale de Elote recipe from Mark Miller’s Coyote Cafe cookbook. The filling is a mix of finely minced poblano peppers and soft goat cheese.

We discovered amarillo during our first visit to Oaxaca in the 1980s, and we were so taken with the complex, subtle, and tangy sauce that we started growing some of the ingredients in our garden the next summer. The key elements are tomatillos, yellow chile peppers, and saffron. We can’t grow saffron, so we buy it from Vanilla Saffron (www.saffron.com). It’s also possible to substitute dried cascabel peppers for the yellow peppers and marigold petals or safflower stamens for the saffron. Epazote (Dysphania ambrosioides), it turned out, is a common weed all over North America, often found in vacant lots. When crushed, its leaves smell a bit like kerosene. We keep a tiny patch in the garden just to make amarillo.

MOLE AMARILLO (YELLOW MOLE)

During the August-September harvest season, we make a concentrated form of this sauce and preserve it by pressure canning. That way, during the winter we have mole amarillo ready to eat in 20 minutes. Just follow the directions through Step 3, ladle into sterilized canning jars, and process for 20 minutes at 10-15 lb. pressure. Because it’s a high-acid food, it will keep safely in canning jars for up to two years. Or so we think. We’ve never been able to hold onto it that long. If you can’t get fresh yellow chiles, use a dozen dried cascabels soaked in boiling water and puréed.

INGREDIENTS

8 fresh yellow chiles (Hungarian Wax, Fresno, Santa Fe Grande, etc.), roasted, peeled, deveined and chopped
1 raw onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
2 pounds tomatillos, husked, parboiled and drained
1 roasted medium onion
1 roasted head of garlic
1 toasted cinnamon stick
6 toasted whole cloves
2 medium tomatoes, roasted and peeled
1 teaspoon dried oregano or 2 teaspoons fresh
8 epazote leaves, minced
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 tablespoons toasted peanut or sesame oil
1 slice raw onion
generous pinch of saffron
4 cups strong chicken broth
1/2 cup tortilla dough (masa)

DIRECTIONS

1. Sauté chiles, raw onion and garlic until soft. Purée and set aside.
2. Purée tomatillos, roasted onion and garlic, cinnamon, cloves, oregano, epazote and tomatoes.
3. Heat oils in heavy skillet. Add onion slice and brown. Stir in tomatillo mixture and cook about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until mole renders out the fat. Stir in chile mixture and simmer about 1 hour or until mixture thickens. Fat on top may be skimmed off.
4. Crumble and dissolve saffron in warm chicken broth. Dissolve tortilla dough in broth.
5. Add to the mole and simmer about 20 minutes until texture of custard, stirring often.