learn to make tamales

A few years ago I had this on my list of things I wanted to learn to do, but I didnt know anyone who made them. I know plenty of people who eat them though, and have had my share of good and bad. We have the Tamale Festival here locally even. Anyway, about 2 years ago now I took it upon myself to learn. I made my first batch right before Christmas. It was a several day process. I made homemade sauces, 1 red and 1 green. Cooked and shredded both pork and chicken. I studied by reading my all time favorite Mexican cookbook and reading about 10 different sites on the internet. Made my masa, soaked my husks, got all the ingredients together and then spent almost an entire day making them. They turned out great and I gave some away as presents. My ultimate compliment came from my friend Isidro, who is from Mexico, and he loved them. I made pork with red chili, potato, and black olive. And chicken with salsa verde with jalapenos. I have made them two more times since and served them on Christmas Eve last year to the whole family. Every time I make them now I have to make more because so many people request them. I bought a humongous tamale steaming pot.

We had a tamale party with my family to make tamales for Christmas! I was in charging of toasting the chiles and then putting the masa on the hojas. I even made some vegetarian tamales with tofu!We had fun!

Sometimes my motto is “it’s later than you think. So this goal will be placed on the back burner.

I took a mole cooking class and one of the side dishes that we learned how to make was green corn tamales—one of my favorite mexican foods! From scratch!! : )

Ok, so a recipe can always be perfected, but I have to say I am impressed with myself. The tamales were a hit!

The page that Emily and mib7 mentioned below was really helpful. As well as the detailed notes from avphibes. Thanks! Now that I am finished with school and work for the holidays, I have been enjoying Christmas as my new project. Tomorrow we are having a small dinner party, and today I decided I would try making tamales. I know, this is crazy, but fun! CT and I jumped on our bikes and headed to the Mission to visit the local Latin American grocers for tamale ingredients. I am not Latina, but you might say that I would like to be. I love the Spanish language and Latin dancing, I have lived in and loved South America, and now I am going to celebrate Las Posadas and make tamales.

Yeterday was my first attempt at making tamales. I did not fail, I just did not do as well as I thought I would. Practice makes progress. I was discouraged that I didn’t get it the first time. Talk about great expectations. So let’s just call this a learning experience.

So now that I’ve made a few hundred tamales in several different types, I feel like I “know how to make tamales.” Here’s some of the things I learned:

1. I tried three different types of steamers and the far and away best is a steamer basket with handles on the side that you can lift out.

2. It’s better to overcook than undercook. Good tamale dough has a spongy, almost cakey texture. If you touch it and it squishes at all, give it another fifteen minutes. Underdone tamale dough is mushy and doesn’t taste nearly as good. Most recipes that call for an hour of steaming, tend to take more like an hour and a half.

3. At one point I made two different batches and one tasted remarkably better than the other. One was bland, the other was flavorful. Then I realized that on the first batch I had used my homemade chicken stock and on the second I had used canned chicken stock. Even though it’s counterintuitive that the canned stock would be better than fresh, the canned was much saltier! If I had just salted my fresh stock more, it probably would have been better. Saltier stock makes for tastier dough.

4. Speaking of tasty dough, adding a few tablespoons of cumin and chili powder to the masa also helps.

5. Although I’ve seen several recipes that just call for seasoned meat, I’m much more into meat mixed with a sauce. The sauce makes the tamales moister. My favorite so far has been shredded pork mixed with a red chile sauce.

6. It’s a pretty labor-intensive endeavor, so it’s best to make sauces and meats a day before making the actual tamales.

Someone here at 43things gave me the link to this tamale page. I’m putting it here so I don’t forget!

wow, am I glad I did a trial run before I jumped into something big! I learned all kinds of lessons.

1. The masa harina masa recipe in the book “tamales 101” is totally wrong. I can only assume that it was some mistake that didn’t get caught in editing. The recipe called for 12 cups of masa Harina and claims to make “2-3 dozen tamales” Since I wanted to do a really small batch, I halved the recipe. As I was measuring out my six cups of masa harina, I noticed that the recipe on the bag called for 2 cups of masa harina to make “appx. 16 small tamales.” I should have turned back right there and gone with the recipe on the bag. When I added the amount of stock indicated in the book recipe, the consistency was totally wrong, so I basically just adjusted the ratios to match the recipe on the bag…and ended up with enough masa for EASILY 4 dozen tamales. I only had enough chicken mixture to make two dozen!

2. I should prepare WAY more corn husks than I think I’ll need. A lot of them are too small or will tear.

3. I had trouble getting them consistently sized since I kept adjusting the amount of masa to the size of the corn husk. I should probably go with the ice cream scoop method for getting a consistent amount of masa in each one…and just not use the too-small corn husks.

4. My steamer is lame for no other reason than the steamer basket is a tray in the bottom instead of a basket that can be lifted out. This made it harder to stack the tamales upright and a pain to refill the water when it boiled down. I actually ended up burning one of my hands (not too badly) trying to do this. I don’t think the steamer is a lost cause, but I’m glad I know what it’s limitations are. I might get a second one anyway.

The actual tamales turned out pretty good, though. The filling was just some shredded chicken breast with a jarred mole sauce, but it was pretty tasty. The masa dough, in spite of the troubles, turned out good. It had a nice texture, although I probably could’ve seasoned it a little more.