CJs Daddy

Someone posted about Tamales on a message board that I frequent and it motivated me to make some of my own.  I’ve done a bit of research on Tamales and have learned about their significance in Central American and Mexican culture.  Even further digging shows how this food was an important part of the diet for Aztec and Mayan peoples.  Most people consider tamales a mexican food, and they are, but they are really an indegenous dish that has a variety of distinct origins and distinct influences from other cultures.

This is evident by the variety of fillings, sauces, and steaming wraps used in different regions of Mexico, Central America, and the USA.  It’s one of those things, much like Pizza, that has taken on a life of its own with several “origination” points, and hundreds of variations.  In Mexico and Central America, they are as common as Pizza, but in the US, you might need to do a little digging, unless you’ve got a road map like the Tamale Trail (how did I NOT know about that sooner?)

So, as you can imagine, there’s no one right way to make a tamale, and no one authentic way because the history is so old and varied. Basically, you’re going to take corn dough, mold it around some kind of filling (or not), wrap it up, and cook it - usually by steaming.  Some tamales are big and gooey meant to be eaten with a fork, and others are small and more firm like a finger food.  About this point, you might expect me to insert a link to Wikipedia - but the tamale entry there needs quite a bit of work.  So in this case, I’ll stick with Gourmet Slueth and Rick Bayless(my current fav TV chef).  I trust them way more than wiki anyway.

Generally, in Guatemala, they use banana leaves, but somtimes corn husks or plantain leaves.  They are served as a snack by street vendors, and prepared in large quantities by families for celebration dinners, particularly Christmas Eve.  I have picture evidence that Mama N introduced little CJ to Tamale at Christmas last year, and she has promised to share her recipe with me.

So, what’s the first thing one must do when making Tamales?  Just like anything else, you find a good recipe.  We’ve made them a couple of times before with improving success, but had recently seen Rick Bayless make them on TV, all the while describing some of their history in the Yucatan of Mexico.  I’m still not sure if the other recipes we had were better or worse, or if it was the cook, but I do believe some instructions for Tamales are over-complicated and intimidating.  So, we went with this one.  The only slight modification was to add a red pepper and tomatillos to the filling sauce.

Next - gather the ingredients.  We already had everything we needed, except for banana leaves, so headed into town to El Puente grocery.  This place, incedently, has the absolute best tortillas in Pennsylvania.

The next step - at least for us?  Buy a Christmas tree!

I think I like that one Daddy.

Once home, it’s time to prepare the filling, which starts with a stewing liquid for meat. In this case, dried chiles and pork.  First, grind the chiles and add water slowly as it blends together as smooth as possible.  Then strain it.

Pretty simple for the filling at this point - drop in some cubed pork and let it simmer for an hour or so until it falls apart.  Take the meat out, mix in a little of the sauce and you’ve got your filling.  We reserved some of the sauce to use as a topping.

Next step - taste the sauce!

Now, mix the masa batter - kinda like you do cookie dough.  Creme your fat (traditionally lard, but in this case shortning and butter.  Drop in the masa  bit at a time, then drizzle in the broth (in this case leftover turkey broth from T-giving)

This all can be done a day ahead - as was the case for us, which makes the assembly easier.  Cold dough really makes it easier to prepare the actual Tamales, as you’ll see below.  Open up your banana leaf, drop a scoop of dough on, and spread.  Then drop a scoop of filling toward the left side of the masa and fold the right hand side of the leaf over to so the right edge of the spread masa meets the left edge.  This will leave a bit of the leaf uncovered on the left.  Fold that over, then the tops and bottoms.  Use twine or banana leaf strips to tie them in a loose package.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of all the folding, but the link to the recipe has a diagram.

Steam those bad boys for about an hour to 90 minutes, until they are sorta firm, but not hard.  I use a bamboo steamer that we often also use for various Asian dishes, particularly dumplings.  If you’re making a bunch, you’ll want a serious steaming setup - this one barely holds 12 of them.

Unwrap, serve with some tasty rice or beans, or both, and enjoy!

Posted on December 9th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: CJ, Food, Fun, Guatemala, Uncategorized