This Year's Tamale Tweaks
 

I've scaled down everything having to do with the holidays this year, even my tamale making. I made up a batch of only 25 tamales this morning and plan to bring them to our outdoor decorating thing tomorrow. (Masks on, at last 6 feet apart, staggering the 5 or 6 people that are coming and going during the day.) I'm going to leave them on the table for my kids to come by and pick up.

I figured that since there are not that many tamales to take home, they'd better be special. I made only roasted pork tamales, no vegan ones this year, since pork is their favorite. To keep things simple, I roasted the pork with a big can of red enchilada sauce in a dutch oven until it was easy to shred...so easy. For extra yumminess, I cut off the kernels of a fresh ear of corn, pan roasted them and added them to the masa dough. I also used marinated olives from the deli, instead of canned olives to put in the center of each one. Plus, I added the left over, oil/vinegar marinade to the pork sauce. (That made a big difference in taste.) I haven't steamed them yet, but the sauce is incredible with that olive stuff in there.

Making only 25 tamales was a lot easier than making 125. Roasting the pork the day before made it super simple to assemble the next day.

I love really good tamales and you sound like you have figured it out. Covid and the lockdowns has changed so much about the way we live.

I really love homemade tamales and haven’t had any since we left Arizona. I hated them for years as when I was a kid I was camping with my grandparents and grandma served canned tamales. Yuck three times over!!! They were and still are horrible.

Anyway, I’m interested in what would be in a vegetarian tamale. My DIL is a vegetarian and I would really like to learn how to make ones she might like. Sure hope I can find the corn husk wrappers here in the middle of NC😊

Sandy in Mooresville, NC

I forgot to say that your pork tamales sound fantastic.

Sandy in Mooresville, NC

Yum! I lived in the Rio Grande Valley for over 30 years. Delia's Tamales are legendary. Christmas tamales must be ordered a month in advance! Last year, they had a security guard in the parking lot to handle customers that had to be turned away!
My favorite: cream cheese and jalapeno!

I love tamales...when I lived in California, my girlfriend and her family always invited me to make a boatload of tamales for the holidays. Do you have a recipe to share?

I love green corn tamales but they are hard to find. My friend usually makes me a dozen for the holidays and they are yummy

Saving this. Thank you for sharing. My husband has been asking if I will learn to make tamales. I do my own enchiladas, mexican rice and a copycat version of barbacoa.

My friend from Indy keeps telling me that the next time she comes she will bring me some tamales from a famous place there where you have to get in line to get them. She has never brought even one. Your roasted pork sounded scrumptious. Guess I'd better learn to make some myself.

When we moved from Phoenix to to norther AZ I made 13 dozen by my self. I did not know it was a family affair. I had a recipe but did not know a lot of the stuff so I went to a store called Bashes and some ladies helped me to get the correct ingredients. When i proceeded I talked to a friend she ask if I got the papers, I did not know about that so back to the groc. Well I bought a big Pan also to steam them in. I read about the olive and that is a surprise in the package. I finished the project and was very tired. I gave some away and people who knew told me they were very good, I made the pork ones. That is the end of my tamale making.

Oh my...I bring up tamales every year on this board and I'm always surprised at how popular the thread is. I've been trying to talk my dau into making them with me and selling them, but she's worried that we might step on the local, Mexican ladies' toes. I say, if we make better tamales than they do, then they better up their game. Frankly, theirs aren't that good. However, I relent, because I know that they need the extra income more than I do.

Tamales are not hard to make, although much easier and more fun when friends and family get involved. It's way easier if done over two days. There are many, many recipes online, so I won't go into details, but my basic shortcuts work out pretty good and without any compromise on taste.

Day One, Filling:
For meat tamales, just buy a chunk of meat, such as a pork shoulder, or a whole chicken, season lightly with salt and put it in a dutch oven with a large can, or two of good, red, enchilada sauce. ( I Like La Victoria's.) Toss in a chopped onion, maybe some chopped red peppers, and a few cloves of garlic and bake covered in the oven at around 325f, until the meat is very tender and falls off the bone. You also might want to take it out of the oven occasionally and scrape the bottom of the pan to get those dark bits off the bottom. When done, take it out and let cool, then shred the meat right into the dutch oven, so that it mixes with your sauce. If the sauce is too fatty, then just drain some fat off.

Day Two, Masa, Essembly:
Clean out your sink and fill it with warm water. Dump your dried, corn husks in there to let them soak and soften for about 20 minutes. After soaking, let them drain in a strainer. Meanwhile, make your dough.

The main ingredient for the dough is Masa Harina, which I can find at my local grocery store, but you may have to go online to get it. (Same with the corn husks.) Don't try to use cornmeal, it's not the same thing. There is usually a recipe for the dough on the package of Masa, but if not, just look online.

Many people swear that lard is the only fat you can use, but I have found that unsalted butter works great and adds some flavor too. I've even used Crisco in the past, which makes for a very light dough, but not that flavorful. Personally, butter is my first choice.

There is also some argument about whether to put a little bit of baking powder in the dough. I never used to put it in, but I do now. It makes the tamale dough a little fluffier. Without the BP, the tamale will be denser and heavier, which isn't bad, but not great if you are going for giant tamales.

Then, there's the addition of broth...another controversy. The old way is to cook more meat on the stove top with water and seasonings to make a homemade broth. That's a lot of extra work and while it maybe does add something to the flavor of the masa dough, I find that you can just used prepared broth, or Better Than Bouillon and water. When I changed over, not one of my family members noticed. Again, that butter adds lots of flavor anyway.

On the subject of olives...we always add an olive in the center, when we are folding the tamales up. You can use canned olives and they work just fine. This year, I used those supermarket deli olives that are marinated in olive oil and herbs. I even added some of the olive marinate to my sauce...yummm. I don't think that I'll ever go back to canned olives again. They added a subtle flavor that permeated the entire tamale. They're my new secret ingredient.

To put the tamales together, just take a soaked corn husk, lay it out on the plate horizontally, dry it off a bit, smear some dough, about 4 inches wide and on the center, bottom 2/3 of the husk, put a couple of tablespoons of meat and sauce that you made the day before, in the center of your dough, don't forget the olive and roll it up, then tuck the pointed end under. If your husk is too short, no worries, just overlap another husk over it.

After you have a dozen tamales, or so, put them in a pot fitted with a vegetable steamer, or colander, or even some crumpled tin foil as a last resort. Place the tamales open end pointing up, like little soldiers. You can tuck them in pretty snug, but don't try to layer them on top of each other. Add a little water to the bottom of the pan, being careful not to get the tamales too wet. The water should just come up to the bottom of the tamales. In other words, the tamales should not be sitting in the water, but just above it. Cover and steam until they are firm when you poke at them with your finger...usually about 30 to 45 minutes. Be sure to check on them occasionally to make sure that there is still water below them. Take them out of the steamer and let them rest and firm up a little.

While the tamales are steaming, you can heat up your leftover meat sauce. Serve the warm tamales with the husk removed and cover with some sauce and perhaps some sour cream, guacamole, green onions, cilantro, pepitas, etc....what ever you want to fancy them up.

That's my basic recipe for meat tamales. They're really not that hard. I think that we had a long thread going last year for veggie ones. I'll try to find that thread and post a link. If you have any questions, lemme know.

Feliz Navidad!

Here's a tamale thread from the past:
https://www.quiltingboard.com/recipe...t293158-2.html
There's an interesting sweet tamale made with raisins and other dried fruit and also some veggie ideas.

Tropic - thank you so very very much for the totally ,great tamale directions. I am definitely saving your whole set of instructions so that I might/can make them. I think I shouldn’t have any problems finding the ingredients even here in the middle of NC.

Sandy in Mooresville,NC

I have a friend that is allergic to pork, chicken and beef. I've made tamales for her with corn and Mexican cheese. Nothing beats homemade tamales. I'm so glad that was a tradition I learned from my grandmother. The best part of the whole process is being with family spreading the masa and the love!

Oh my, you are quite welcome. Like we all say, nothing brings together a family like tamales...except maybe ice cream. :D Ice cream and tamales...my two favorite foods in the whole world.

Well, thank heaven no one can see me sitting here wiping the drool of my face after reading your receipehttps://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images...es/redface.png Sounds a lot better than the one I tried, will keep yours for when I want to try again.

So I got on the internet and watched countless tamale preparations. I thought I could do this. Only thing I didn't have was a family member to help. Down the street is a little Amish family who has one girl so I borrowed her. Did we ever have fun!!!
I used pork steaks and cooked them for 8 hours in a roaster with onion, garlic and cumin. Pulling the meat from the bones was the easy part. Crisco was my masa fat and that pretty much had no flavor, so I threw in half a cup of sugar with the baking powder. Our sauce was red with tomatoes and some salsa I found in the isles next to the Masa.
Only disaster was that we boiled the steamer dry and burned the bottom of the pan. The Amish girl sat down and ate EIGHT of them.

Sugar is an interesting addition. There are lots of recipes out there for sweet tamales too. I've made one with fresh corn and cinnamon.

Yeah...I should have told you to keep adding water. I've burned the bottom before too. It's usually no biggy, but it might make the tamales taste burned, if it gets really bad.

We love homemade tamales & just this past year I used the recipe from this site. I love Whippoorwill Holler. They are homesteaders & she has so many good recipes. When I made my tamales I cooked my pork in the slow cooker the day before & also made all my red sauce the day before. I was able to get 42 tamales out of a 7 lb. pork butt roast. I would suggest getting one of those little masa spreaders. They make spreading the masa so much easier & even.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...13E1&FORM=VIRE

I haven't made tamales in years because they are such a pain to make, but they are worth it. It goes a lot faster if you have other people to help actually make the tamales.