Tamales (Again!)

As you know, we have made tamales a few times in the past. Both times, they came out great, but were lacking a little something. After playing around with the recipe a bit, Mandi and I came up with our favorite way to make tamales. From now on if I make them, I will reference this post. Note: I am mostly talking about the dough here. The fillings can be whatever you want! Now that I have perfected the dough, I will experiment with more fillings in the future, but these are with a simple taco meat. As I said before, this is similar to posts in the past, so sorry if you are bored by it, but you should know that Mandi and I can't let a recipe rest until it is perfected!!!

Here is one of the secrets in my opinion. One of the tamale recipes we used in the past used raw cornmeal mixed with masa harina. The other just used masa harina. What we did here was start cooking the cornmeal before mixing it with the masa harina! You basically start making polenta or grits!

Some jalapenos and spring onions for the insides.

We pretty much made our standard taco meat, but added extra onions and some bell pepper in addition to the normal jalapenos.

Season the masa harina

then stir in the half cooked grits.

You are aiming for the consistency of peanut butter.

Spread it out over soaked corn husks.

Yum taco meat.

Some of the spring onions and jalapenos.

Cheese and meat go in the middle, then roll it up like a burrito.

We really filled this thing up. We actually threw it away after this use cause it was getting kinda old.

Yum. These really were the best!

Start with a cup and a half of boiling water or chicken stock. Whisk in just less than a cup of cornmeal. Cook this on high whisking the whole time for about 3 - 5 minutes. In a larger bowl, place just less than a cup of masa harina, a half tablespoon of cumin, chile powder, and paprika, and a half teaspoon of salt and cayenne. Pour the cornmeal into this bowl and mix to combine. This should be like the texture of peanut butter. If it is too thick or thin, add some water or masa accordingly. Stuff in corn husks that have been soaking for an hour and steam them for an hour to an hour and a half.

The taco meat post is here, and also Mandi finally updated the guacamole stubble post so check it out here!