The peanut's best role in Mexican cuisine is as a thickener, says Rick Bayless, author, chef-owner and cooking teacher of the PBS television show, Mexico: One Plate at a Time, companion to his book of the same name.

In Mexico, peanuts are called cacahuate, from the Aztec language, and along with pumpkin and sesame seeds, they are one of the nuts used to thicken a mole. In some recipes, the peanut alone is used as in Smoky Peanut Mole. In others, a blend of nuts and seeds does the work.

The word mole is the Spanish adaptation of the natives' spoken word molli. Unlike many peanut sauces worldwide, the nut-thickened mole must be satiny-smooth, says Bayless. While traditionally that work is achieved through the stone metate, modern cooks use the blender. Bayless spells out the keys to a perfectly smooth, peanut-thickened mole sauce:

In Mexico, peanuts are most often eaten as a street snack. Street vendors roast or fry little Spanish peanuts with skins attached and season them with lime juice, ground chili and salt, for example. In the Oaxaca province, the favored street snack is garlic-fried peanuts, using the small garlic cloves native to the region. The fried peanuts are studded throughout with up to 10 garlic cloves per cup of peanuts.

These recipes from Chef Rick Bayless illustrate the range of uses of peanuts in the Mexican kitchen, from street food to the lovingly and patiently homemade mole: