Tamales
These sound really good but it may be a bit of a stretch to find some of the ingredients here. This does take a bit of time to make this. Link to the shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
For the Filling
- 600 grams pork loin, (20 oz)
- 1 large onion, cut in half
- 1 clove garlic
- 4 dried California chili pods
- 1½ teaspoons salt
For the Dough
- 2 cups masa harina
- 1¼ cups broth, from cooking the meat
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup lard, very important to use real lard, Shortcut
- 1 package dried corn husks, (about 225 g / 8 oz)
Instructions
- Using a large, big enough to hold the pork loin, add about 3 inches of water and add the chili pods, onion, garlic, salt. Boil this for about 30 minutes, then remove the chilies and 2 cups of the liquid from the pot and put in a bowl to cool.
- Place the pork loin in the same pot and add water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 2-3 hours, until it can easily be shredded with two forks or with your hands. Remove the pot from the burner and leave the meat in the pot and let cool to room temperature.
- When the chilies and 2 cups of water is cooled, add both to a blender and blend until smooth, pour into bowl and stir in a pinch of salt. When the meat has cooled, remove that from the broth and drain for a few minutes, retain the broth in the pot, then place the meat in a large bowl and shred with two forks or your hands, then pour in half of the half of the chili mixture and mix that into the shredded meat, set aside.
- In another pot, bring some water to a boil and add the corn husks, reduce to a simmer for about an hour, this is to make the husks very soft.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the lard with a tablespoon of the broth from the pot until fluffy. Combine the masa harina, baking powder, and salt, then stir that into the lard mixture, adding more broth as needed to form a spongy dough.
- Take one of the husks and pull some strands from it, making each strand about an ⅛ inch wide, these will be used to tie each tamale.
- Place husk on your work surface, at the large end of the husk, spread some dough about ¼ to ½ inch thick, keeping away from the edges and away from the tapered end, place one tablespoon of meat mixture on the dough in the center, then fold the sides of the husks towards the center to cover the filling, then fold the tapered end up and tie one of the strands around the tamale, then stand this up in your steamer, open end up, repeat to fill the steamer. Steam for an hour or until the husk easily pulls away from the tamale. Remove the husks from what you are going to serve and drizzle the remaining chili sauce over and top with sour cream.
Notes
I cannot price this other than the pork, some of the ingredients I have yet to see here although I was never looking for those items. For now I will say fair cost.
Shortcut: Rendering Lard.
Leave a Reply