Experiencing centuries of Mexican-American history and culture works up an appetite, so we were only too happy to catch up with three local taste-makers, Chef Acevedo of Mercado, Pasadena; Chef Delgado of The Langham Hotel, Pasadena; and Dylan and Daniel Luna of El Sereno, co-creators of a family recipe-based chili sauce line, to whet our appetite as we approach Mexican Independence Day on September 15th.
Chef Jose Acevedo grew up in Acambaro, Guanajuato, Mexico, and now creates stellar dishes for Mercado Pasadena.
His complex, indigenous-inspired dish featured here is called Chiles en Nogada, meaning in creamy, slightly sweet walnut sauce. He says “The reason I have it in my restaurant is because I feel very proud of my roots and traditions. For me, cooking one of the most representative dishes from Mexico is an honor, especially exposing those flavors to other cultures.”
Without going too far on the authenticity quest, this recipe involves several key ingredients which are introduced, not indigenous, but deeply significant culturally. Botanists opine that the walnut first emerged as a species in central Asia, then on to Persia, the Caucasus and China where it was used primarily as a medicine, eventually reaching the Americas in the 1700s courtesy of the Franciscans.
Pomegranates have a long, mystical narrative in the Levant, as well as in India and the Mediterranean, which predates their colonial arrival in Mexico. Both walnuts and pomegranates signal the arrival of autumn, in Mexico as in much of the world, neatly linking this dish to the celebration of independence.
Likewise, the raisins, pine nuts, apples, pears, peaches, along with the porcine and bovine elements of meat and dairy – such hoof stock was not on the Mexican menu until the 1519 arrival of Cortes – are not native, nor is the optional splash of sherry which adds depth or sabor.
But the mild green poblano pepper native to Puebla is most definitely indigenosa, and is the star of the dish. Chef Acevedo says, “The story goes that this dish was first prepared in 1821 by Augustinian nuns from the Santa Mónica convent in Puebla to honor General Agustín de Iturbide, who played a key role in the revolution. The occasion for creating the dish was Iturbide’s visit to Puebla following the signing of the Treaty of Cordoba, formalizing Mexico’s liberation from Spain.”
Chef Acevedo points out that the green chile, the white walnut sauce, and the brilliant red arils of the granada mirror the colors of the Mexican flag. He describes the prep for Chiles en Nogada as a “labor of love, requiring “time and precision,” citing fire-roasting the chiles to bring out their natural smokiness, peeling the chiles, blanching and skinning the walnuts for a satiny sauce texture, and so many other steps that we remember why, lacking a kitchen-ful of nimble-fingered amigas, we don’t try this at home.
The American lack of imagination (and courage) when it comes to dining is the stuff of a thousand one-liners.
Mole – the source-word is Nahuatl, molli, simply meaning “sauce” and having nothing whatsoever to do with burrowing rodents—may be equally confounding (though not nearly as stomach-churning) to first-timers because it’s a genre of savory cooking which involves chocolate.
Although lamb with mint sauce, turkey with cranberry relish and pork chops with applesauce comfortably pair the savory with the sweet, many people balk at the idea of eating chocolate with their chicken. The reality is that true Mole recipes are sophisticated, and you will never feel like you’re biting into a Snickers bar.
In fact, there’s even a Oaxacan mole specifically for funerals, Mole chichilo, the deepest, darkest Mole. We don’t find it easily in our gastronomical wanderings. This non-sweet dish is made with deeply charred, ground chilhuacle negro chiles for somber color and profound flavor profile. Avocado leaves impart a licorice-like perfume and aftertaste, and making it is so labor-intensive that time in the kitchen together gives families an intimate opportunity to cry, rage, grieve, mourn, embrace.
Once again, food becomes the medium for transmitting culture.
Chef Jorge Delgado of The Royce Steakhouse at the Langham Hotel, Pasadena, opts for a less austere Mole. Chef Jorge was born in Chula Vista, CA and spent his childhood in Tijuana. The grandson of a baker, and helped his mother make burritos from scratch. He’s a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu and Pasadena City College.
Tomatoes, four types of dried chiles, pumpkin seeds and chocolate earn this dish indigenous props, and we’re christening it a modern, Mod Mole, as follows:
Chef Delgado’s Mod Mole
Ingredients:
- Equipment and tools: cheesecloth, grill or broiler, sauté and saucepans, blender.
- 8 -10 Roma tomatoes
- 1 -2 yellow onions
- 1 whole head of garlic
- 10 dried Guajillo chiles
- 4 dried Ancho chiles
- 3 dried Morita chiles
- 4-5 dried Chiles de Arbol
- 1 cup roasted peanuts
- ½ cup roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
- 5 oz. Mexican dark chocolate
- 1 cup black raisins
- 1 toasted cinnamon stick
- 2 tablespoons toasted cumin seed
- ½ quart chicken stock
- Salt + pepper to taste
Preparation:
- Using grill or broiler, give a heavy char on tomatoes and onions, keeping them whole. Set aside.
- Oven-roast pepitas and peanuts at 350F for approximately 4 – 5 minutes
- Pan-roast all dried chiles with separated garlic cloves
- Place cinnamon sick and cumin seeds in cheesecloth
- Move all ingredients into saucepan, and simmer for 25 minutes until almost dry (au sec)
- Move all ingredients to blender, blend until smooth, salt and pepper to taste.
Mole, like curry, is versatile. In Mexico, it’s often a delectable puddle of pre-Columbian goodness for chicken, beef or pork. But when there’s a cup or so left over, it’s satisfying over eggs, rice or pasta, and makes a swoony dipping sauce for chips or wedges of warm corn tortilla. Or just eat it with a spoon– you know you want to.
“Una Comida Sin Chile Es Como Un Dia Sin Sol“
Translation: “A meal without chile is like a day without sunshine.”
Entrepreneur and El Sereno local Dylan Luna is not a Chef—he simply doesn’t have the time. So much so that it’s hard to say which part of his crammed calendar is the side-hustle. There really isn’t one.
He’s on our cooking and eating radar as the co-founder of Chile de Abuelo, the bottled hot sauce brand in three flavors that he launched in 2022, selling bottles throughout El Sereno. It’s taking the niche by storm. Luna reports, “Fair to say we’ve at least tripled-to-quadrupled our production since 2022, sales reflecting such as well, things are going well — it’s humbling.” His goal is to take the brand to the big-box nationals.
Of course, it’s a family affair, with his cousin Daniel Luna on hand as his business partner. Dylan’s Jill-of-all-artistic trades wife Elizabeth Luna designed the brand’s jaunty logo and directs the product’s branding and marketing.
“We come from a long line of chile-makers, so it was no small task to build a brand that embodied our chile! She killed it, though,” says Dylan. “My abuelito would tease her and say, ‘¡Soy mas guapo que eso!‘ (I’m more handsome than that!’). We would all laugh and disagree to tease him back, but he was so proud of the logo, and proud of her.”
The name of this bottled explosion of Mexican flavor means “Chile of the grandfather,” but Luna says. “So, funny, our recipe actually comes from my bisabuela, my grandpa’s mother, but he carried on her tradition and we, his. So not to enforce the gender roles either, but like all good things, of course there is a woman behind it.”
Aside from running the chile company, Dylan and Daniel also co-founded ALFA Scholars together, a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to his late uncle, Alex Luna. Alex Luna was Daniel’s father, an artist and muralist in El Sereno during the 1970s and 1980s who went on to earn a degree in fine arts, then serve as director of the graphic arts department for the office of the Los Angeles District Attorney before his death from cancer in 2013. The non-profit offers scholarships to student-artists pursuing higher education, and enriches the community with art classes and beautification murals.
Oh, right, and Dylan is also a gifted muralist; he just finished a mural for Cal State LA Federal Credit Union.
And, Luna works full-time at a Latino civil rights organization where he advocates for the protection and defense of the rights of all Latinos living in the United States, and the Constitutional rights of all Americans. Dylan also became a father last year.
(Can we just say, ¡Orale, mijo! ?)
Luna’s commercial kitchen is fragrant with the perfumes of chile de arbol, guajillo, ancho, chipotle chiles. Over the summer, Chile del Abuelo collaborated with Chefs Alex and Elvia Garcia of @evil_cooks to create the “Evil Abuelo,” a heavy-metal themed, limited-edition black chipotle chile sauce paired with pork belly. They bottled the “Chipotle Negro” sauce which rocked a label with elements from both company logos.
Luna gave us his insight into the collaboration: “We have been fortunate to have done some collabs with awesome small businesses the last year or so, with Por Tu Caldito Amor, Tirzah’s Mexi-terranean, and most recently working with Elvia and Alex, I think it’s safe to say we work similarly, in the sense we’re obsessive about mastering our crafts, so throwing us together was this, creative-foodie-evil-genius experiment! To say the least, it was a lot of fun and we simply just hold them in high regard with complete admiration.”
As for now, “We have been getting requests for a habanero chile sauce,” he says, “so we’ve created a sauce that has elements from both our grandpa’s and grandma’s sauce recipes, but with a twist from Daniel and myself to scratch that itch – so keep an eye out for that!”
With deep roots in Durango, Mexico, the corrido of this chile sauce spans more than a century and four generations of the Luna family. Dylan’s grandfather David, the Abuelo in question, learned the recipe from his mother and began making the sauce himself. Abuelo David left this earth in 2023 but his legacy lives on, not only in the work-ethic, aroma, spice and sabor of the expanding product offering, but also in the unforgettably stern advice that grandpa David gave grandson Dylan: “Take care of your little girl… and don’t screw up the chile!”
