It has become a tradition in our house to make tamales for Christmas. This is very in keeping with our current location, as tamales are a traditional meal in New Mexico. Every grocery store sells the ingredients needed to make them, conveniently collected together on their end caps around Christmas.
They are a lot of work.
Despite the effort involved in making them, they get easier and faster to make with each attempt.
The problem is that, since I only make them once a year, I forget things from year to year and esssentially have to re-learn those things every year.
But I have this handy blog! I frequently search my own site for recipes I've found online in the past, or things I've done and can't remember. So I decided this year to post my own tips for making tamales, so I can reference them in years to come. And then, of course, they might help some of you. Should you also feel the urge to make tamales at some point.
It could happen.
Onward!
--I use this recipe for the masa mixture, except I don't put the chile in it. I did put some of the liquid from cooking my meat this time, but the masa could be more highly spiced.
--I never have lard, so I use tallow instead. If I don't have enough tallow--it uses so much tallow; SO MUCH--then I can make up the difference with butter or rendered sheep fat.
--I like the instruction to slap the masa mixture with your flat hand. If nothing sticks to your hand and it gets shiny from the fat, it's good to go. My children like doing this, too.
--Making a double recipe of the masa mixture does not give me 60 tamales, as the recipe says it will. I got 45 this time. But we ate exactly half of those, so that's about right for a double recipe for our family. These are very heavy. No one eats more than four.
--I never follow a recipe for the meat filling. I always use beef, because I think it's tastier when re-heated. Anything shreddy will work. But because there is so little in each tamale--only about two tablespoons of meat--it needs to be very highly spiced. If it tastes too strong on its own, it's good for tamales. I don't like really spicy tamales, which is why I make my own, but the meat mixture this year needed more spice in it.
--I always end up with a lot of extra meat when I've run out of masa. This is okay, because I can freeze it for another meal, but probably 1.5 pounds of meat would be fine, instead of the 2 pounds called for in the recipe I use for the masa.
--Forget the instruction to soak the corn husks "in a large bowl." No one has a bowl that big. Use the sink.
--A one-pound bag of corn husks has over a hundred husks in it. Soak about half of them. (I put the whole bag in this time, and then had to dry out all the extra ones to save them. Luckily, things dry easily here, especially by our woodstove this time of year.)
--I have to use a ruler to figure out how wide a 5-inch corn husk is. Eyeballing it does not work for me.
--I cannot spread the masa mixture with a knife, despite the instructions. Instead, I roll a log of masa, put it on the corn husk, and smoosh it around with my fingers. This probably means that my layer of masa is thicker than it's supposed to be--and that's why I run out of masa before getting to 60 tamales--but it doesn't stick to my fingers. It does stick to a knife.
--These have to be tied to keep them together. And the pieces of corn husk to tie them cannot be too thin, or they will tear when pulled tight. So annoying.
--Children LOVE to help make tamales. If you have multiple children helping, set them up in a line on the counter, in order of their jobs, with a flat surface for each of them. The most competent child will at the end, tying the tamales together. The second most competent child is in charge of spreading the masa. The other two jobs are putting the meat mixture in the middle, and folding the tamale for tying. If you have another child, they can rinse off, measure, and cut the corn husks to size.
--It will take twice as long for an assembly line of children to make tamales as it will take you on your own. Accept this, put on some music, and settle in.
--This time, it took about an hour and a half to assemble 45 tamales. I did about half on my own, though, before the children came in from playing in the snow and wanted to help. I was in the kitchen preparing the meat and masa, soaking the husks, etc. for a little more than 2 hours. This does not count rendering the tallow or cooking the beef, which had already been done.
--I steam them using my giant pressure canner/cooker as a regular pot, and it takes one hour for them to be done.
That ended up being a lot more tips than I thought it would. It should be helpful next year when I'm planning my attack the tamales.
Have you ever made tamales? Do you have tips for me?
4 comments:
The Mexican Fiesta at my parish served homemade tamales- all the ladies of A&R would spend a Saturday making them. Covid put a damper on that for a while, then the guy in charge had a brilliant plan of making them to sell as a separate fundraiser at Christmas. Very popular, as most people are not fond of making tamales, though they love eating them.
I think it helped, though, that although my parish is named after an Irish Saint, we have a very large population of Mexican families who've been in parish for ever. (Mexican and Irish railroad workers built the parish back in the day.) Those ladies can roll tamales like no body's business.
I don't know if you've come across the book My Heart Lies South, by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino, but in it she describes her cook making tamales in 1930s Mexico. The cook starts by making a trip to her home village and returns with a pig's head and two younger brothers to help cook. She grinds the corn by hand and the whole thing takes days. Great description.
mbmom11: How appropriate that I make tamales, then, since I'm one-third of our altar society. :-) I don't sell them, but I did give some away.
Kit: I hadn't heard of that book, but I just ordered it for our school library. And I will certainly read it. Thanks!
Banana leaves for wrappers are really good too, they leave a different taste and smell to the tamales. A Mexican friend uses them for some of her sweet tamales. She made an assortment of different flavored ones and brought them on a skiing trip one New Year. We reheated them over a firepit and I've never had food that tasted so good. She was raised in an area of Mexico where they grow bananas and using both types of wraps is common.
I've made tamales twice and they are definitely a labor of love. Mine weren't the best, but we ate them anyway.
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