Ok, I'm exaggerating. There are things that are much more complicated (read: baking!), but man, making these can take quite a while!
Tamales a Mexican dish of seasoned meat (or cheese, or peppers) wrapped in cornmeal dough and steamed or baked in corn husks (thanks Google!). (These are my last parentheses, I swear).
(I lied about the parentheses.)
So really, you can choose to fill these with anything you'd like. Usually, the most common fillings are "verde" and "rojo". This is usually a chicken or pork stew in green or red sauce. Other varieties include mole, poblano pepper strips in cream or red sauce, string cheese, or sweet. I chose to make verdes and mole because it's the two kinds we favor the most.
Now, the real time consuming part of this dish is preparing the filling. The fastest one would just be string cheese (or Oaxaca if you can find it). Otherwise, here are the recipes for the fillings I used:
- Cerdo en salsa verde - If you don't want to make it in the slowcooker, you can cook it on low heat for 30-40 minutes. You will need about 1 lb of pork for about 8 tamales. Pollo con mole -
- Just combine the mole sauce with cooked, shredded chicken and simmer together on low heat for about 10-15 minutes. I used 2 chicken thighs.
Tamales verdes y de mole
Servings: about 16 tamales
Prep time: 10 min (not counting the fillings!)
Cook time: 1 hour (not counting the fillings!)
Total time: 1 hour 10 min
2 cups Maseca
2.5 cups chicken broth or water
1 tbsp oil
pinch of salt
1 bag of Goya corn husks
Place the corn husks in a big container with water, or fill up your sink and soak them there. The need to be thoroughly soaked so you can fold them.
Follow the package instructions to make the masa. Just combine the broth, salt, Maseca and oil. You should be able to make lemon-sized balls with the dough, it should feel kind of like Play-Doh and not have any cracks.
Grab one of the corn husks and set it down flat. Create a ball about the size of a lemon and press it down onto the top center of the husk.
Then, add about 1-2 tbsp of your filling. Fold the left side over, then right, and finish folding from the bottom up.
Once you finish the dough/filling/husks, place all the tamales in a steamer and steam for about 1 hour. If you don't have a steamer, you have to get creative.
Use the remaining husks to line the bottom of a deep pot. Place the tamales standing up in the pot. Carefully, pour about 1/2 inch of water under the layer of husks that are lining your pot. Bring that water to a boil then reduce the heat to low and steam the tamales, covered, for an hour.
You can keep these in the fridge for about a week, and reheat them in the microwave with a little bit of water on the plate.
Now, while they were good, in all honesty they were very dry!! I am going to try a different recipe using lard and I will keep you updated. I'm also thinking of adding some oil to the husk before the masa, and that will help.
So, until I try these again, you get no rating!! This is a very light version of a tamal though, so enjoy! :)
