Roasted Carrots With Mole Encacahuatado
If your love of peanut sauce knows no bounds, it’ll surely extend to this recipe, adapted from my cookbook “Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor” (Knopf, 2025). It’s inspired by a Mexican peanut mole that is traditionally served with chicken in the dish pollo encacahuatado. The term mole stems from the Nahuatl word “molli,” which means sauce or concoction. Mole — not just one dish but a whole category — is used in different ways: as a dressing or sauce for meats or roasted vegetables, or smothering enchiladas or rice. Here, this dark, intense peanut sauce is served with cumin-scented roasted carrots. Bunches of small carrots are ideal, as the carrot greens make an herby addition to the dish, but you can simply substitute fresh carrot tops with parsley, if your carrots are lacking.
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