Tamales
Nunya Bidnits
I thought I'd ask here. Can anyone share good recipes and techniques? I'd
like to start with a shredded beef filling, and I'm also interested in
trying it with chicken. Other fillings interest me too.
Thanks,
MartyB in KC
.
september.invalid> wrote:
> I want to try making my own tamales, and recipes seem to vary quite a bit so
> I thought I'd ask here. Can anyone share good recipes and techniques?
Technique:
If you're not planning on making dozens of tamales and eating them out
of your hand like a burrito or selling them to strangers in
supermarket parking lots, there's no reason to use corn husks to make
individual tamales.
I have never used a corn husk yet. I grease a casserole and line the
bottom and sides with the masa. Then I add the pre-cooked filling and
cover the top with a layer of masa.
And then...
And then...
I don't even have a tamale steamer. I place this casserole into the
microwave and nuke it for 20 minutes.
Then I let the casserole sit for 45 minutes to steam the masa.
When I serve it, I just scoop some of the resultant tamale pie onto a
plate.
> I'd like to start with a shredded beef filling, and I'm also interested in
> trying it with chicken. Other fillings interest me too.
There are NO rules to tamales. You can fill your tamales (or a tamale
pie) with anything you can imagine, whether it's meat, fish, fowl, or
vegetable.
Nunya Bidnits
That's tamale pie, which is nice, but what I'm really looking for really
authentic recipes with specifics for creating the fillings, and suggestions
on the best techniques for preparing the masas and assembling the tamales.
It looks a bit tricky to me.
MartyB
.
september.invalid> wrote:
Uh-oh! You said the "A" word. Nobody likes to read about "authentic"
Mexican cooking in this group!
Authentic Mexican cooking is so difficult.
Like, for instance, if you want to make a batch of gopher tamales, you
have to
catch a bunch of gophers...
Nunya Bidnits
Like if I want to catch a troll, I read your posts... is that about right?
<plonk>
.
september.invalid> wrote:
> >> That's tamale pie, which is nice, but what I'm really looking for
> >> really authentic recipes with specifics for creating the fillings,
> >> and suggestions on the best techniques for preparing the masas and
> >> assembling the tamales. It looks a bit tricky to me.
There's nothing "tricky" about making tamales. Illiterate Mexican
Indians made them for thousands of years and they didn't even have a
google search engine to look for tamale recipes in the archive of
alt.food.mexican-cooking...
You can buy ready-made masa or masa seca in any market that has
Mexican products and you can follow the directions on the package to
mix it.
You can fill your tamales with anything that you like. There's no
point in making your own chile sauce from peppers except for the
experience of doing that once or twice. Canned chile sauces work just
fine for later batches.
And, like I said before, using corn husks to wrap individual small
tamales is silly if you're not going to eat them out of hand like a
burrito, or carry them to work in your saddlebag, or try to sell them
to strangers in supermarket parking lots around Christmas or give them
to your family and friends.
Tamales are the Mexican equivalent of fruitcake at Christmas time.
Nobody really wants tamales for a gift...
And tamales should never be included in the main course for a
Christmas dinner, because they are just a traditional fiesta snack
food.
sf
<nunyab...@eternal-september.invalid> wrote:
>what I'm really looking for really
>authentic recipes with specifics for creating the fillings, and suggestions
>on the best techniques for preparing the masas and assembling the tamales.
>It looks a bit tricky to me.
Can't tell you about "authentic" (here's authentic
http://rollybrook.com/tamales.htm), but I can tell you what I do.
Chicken - I take this opportunity to make chicken stock too, so season
up some water with carrots, onion, celery etc and poach a whole
disjointed chicken until cooked through. Remove the chicken to cool.
Take the chicken meat off the bones and toss bones back into the stock
to finish it.
Make the filling:
Combine your shredded chicken meat with a can of crushed tomatillos.
I also add one bunch of chopped green onions, a good handful of
chopped cilantro and some chopped garlic.... anything else is up to
you.
Beef - this is the only time I ever use a crockpot. Put a chuck steak
(browned), a can of red chile sauce aka: chile colorado or enchilada
sauce (anything else is up to you) into the crockpot and let it simmer
overnight. The next morning, shred the meat and combine with sauce.
Refrigerate until ready to make tamales.
Tamales are easy enough. You can buy masa premade (beat in a little
chicken broth to lighten it up) and instead of using corn husks, buy
those triangular shaped papers. Believe me, there is no noticeable
flavor difference in the finished product and paper (IMO) is a lot
easier to work with than husks because you don't need to piece them
together.
--
I love cooking with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.
.
> and instead of using corn husks, buy
> those triangular shaped papers. Believe me, there is no noticeable
> flavor difference in the finished product and paper (IMO) is a lot
> easier to work with than husks because you don't need to piece them
> together.
A purist that used to frequent this group insisted that corn husks
added
"a grace of flavor" to his tamales, while another poster actually
wanted to know how to *recycle* the greasy used husks...
I don't use husks or papers at all, because I don't eat my tamales out
of hand or sell them in supermarket parking lots.
Nunya Bidnits
Thanks!
I appreciate the recipes, and the rollybrook website is fantastic!
MartyB
sf
You're welcome! I wish we could make tamales together, it's a lot of
fun. :)
sf
<breoganm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>A purist that used to frequent this group insisted that corn husks
>added "a grace of flavor" to his tamales, while another poster actually
>wanted to know how to *recycle* the greasy used husks...
HAH! I wasn't reading this group during those times. Wish I was here
when it was livelier.
>
>I don't use husks or papers at all, because I don't eat my tamales out
>of hand or sell them in supermarket parking lots.
Me either. I make what I like and they are pretty darn good. Nobody
has complained yet. :)
Nunya Bidnits
> On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:22:19 -0600, "Nunya Bidnits"
> <nunyab...@eternal-september.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> I appreciate the recipes, and the rollybrook website is fantastic!
>>
>> MartyB
>
> You're welcome! I wish we could make tamales together, it's a lot of
> fun. :)
And they'd be real tasty while we were waiting for the barbecued ribs and
brisket!
I've been thinking that barbecued pulled pork would be good in tamales, or
maybe brisket, the point piece, shredded (aka burnt ends).
MartyB in KC
.
september.invalid> wrote:
> sf said:
> > You're welcome! I wish we could make tamales together, it's a lot of
> > fun. :)
>
> And they'd be real tasty while we were waiting for the barbecued ribs and
> brisket!
Aha! You're finally realizing the nature of tamales, tacos,
enchiladas, and all the other antojitos: they are *appetizers*
preceding the main formal dinner.
Eating tamales certainly does remind successful Mexicans of their
Indian roots, but making a meal out of tamales, enchiladas, Mexican
rice and re-fried beans is
a Tex-Mex invention called a "combination plate.'
The "combination plate" was invented in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area in
the 1920's by a Mexican taqueria owner who realized that he could save
money on dishwashing by serving multiple antojitos on one plate...
A real formal Mexican dinner is a multi-course affair, with soup,
salad, perhaps pasta, one or two meat/fish/poultry dishes, a dessert
such as pastry, and then the men retire to the living room for cigars
and coffee.
A Navidad dinner which was nothing but antojitos would be a sad affair
unless the celebrants were on welfare.
>
> I've been thinking that barbecued pulled pork would be good in tamales, or
> maybe brisket, the point piece, shredded (aka burnt ends).
That would definitely be an *upscale* tamale.
Impoverished Mexicans living in villages in the interior would fill
their tamales with *offal*, i.e., the intestines, internal organs,
tongue, head meat, or brains of slaughtered cattle, sheep, or goats,
and the patron who owned the rancho where they worked would eat the
choice cuts of meat.
Some people would consider this factual description of the reality of
Mexican mestizo and Indian cooking to be "class warfare" because it
compares the cooking of the poor with the cooking of the upper and
middle classes.
Walt Lewis
took was for tamales. I have never had a tamale made like the main way
they taught us.
We were told that in the US we should get some Maseca add some oil --
lard -- and water to make the dough.
The difference wasthat we took a ball of dough a little bigger than a
golf ball and placed it in a tortillia press to get a circle of dough
about8 inches in diameter and about 1/16 of an inch thick we then
placed some shredded chicken, caso fresco and mole sauce and folded it
to make the packet. Then wrapped the tamale in a corn husk to steam.
Using the tortillia press, the tamale turned out to be more like a
delicate pasta rather than the gummy dough I sadly often get in the
Mexican restaurants.
That's how I make them.
.
> The difference wasthat we took a ball of dough a little bigger than a
> golf ball and placed it in a tortillia press to get a circle of dough
> about8 inches in diameter and about 1/16 of an inch thick ...
How do you keep the gooey masa from sticking to the tortilla press?
> Using the tortillia press, the tamale turned out to be more like a
> delicate pasta rather than the gummy dough I sadly often get in the
> Mexican restaurants.
When I make a tamale grande (you might call it a "tamale pie"), the
cooked masa is about 1/4 of an inch thick and has the consistency of
couscous...
Nunya Bidnits
> I spent a summer on a culinary tour in Oaxaca and one of the classes I
> took was for tamales. I have never had a tamale made like the main way
> they taught us.
>
> We were told that in the US we should get some Maseca add some oil --
> lard -- and water to make the dough.
>
> The difference wasthat we took a ball of dough a little bigger than a
> golf ball and placed it in a tortillia press to get a circle of dough
> about8 inches in diameter and about 1/16 of an inch thick we then
> placed some shredded chicken, caso fresco and mole sauce and folded it
> to make the packet. Then wrapped the tamale in a corn husk to steam.
>
> Using the tortillia press, the tamale turned out to be more like a
> delicate pasta rather than the gummy dough I sadly often get in the
> Mexican restaurants.
>
> That's how I make them.
Thanks! That culinary tour sounds like you a great time. One of the things
I've been trying to figure out is whether I'm supposed to add shortening or
lard to the cornmeal mix, maseca. I'm intrigued by the method since I agree
that the tamales we get are too often mostly rather mushy meal so you don't
really get the flavor of the filling. I also hadn't seen any mention of any
kind of cheese until your post.
So is the masa packet tucked on the ends like a burrito, or left open?
What are your proportions for lard and maseca?
I've seen some instructions where they use some meat stock instead of water,
do you ever do that?
Thanks for your post,
MartyB in KC
.
september.invalid> wrote:
> I'm intrigued by the method since I agree
> that the tamales we get are too often mostly rather mushy meal so you don't
> really get the flavor of the filling.
You guys just don't get it, do you? If you just want a *wrap*, just
make yourself a burrito in a flour tortilla.
If you want a *delicate* pastry-like burrito, make yourself some
crepes and fill them with stewed beef. Maybe add some pearl onions?
Wait! That's called beef bourguignon! A restaurant chain called "The
Magic Pan" used to serve beef bourguignon in crepes.
If you serve greasy roasted duck in a crepe, that's Peking Duck...
But this thread is about tamales.
A tamale is ALL about the steamed corn meal, with just enough filling
inside, or mole drizzled over the finished tamale, to spice up the
bland taste of the nixtamalized white corn meal masa.
IOW, the corn meal is the staple, the filling and sauce is just a
flavoring.
Mexicans use a lot of pork lard in tamales to enhance the flavor. You
could make a tamale NO filling at all, and it would taste great if you
used enough pork lard!
You guys are trying to *reverse* the proportions.
Didn't your Mom ever make corn meal mush for you when you were a kid?
A child has more active taste buds on his tongue and finds wonderful
flavors in
the blandest foods.
My Mom used to take left over corn meal mush and freeze it and then
fry it in a skillet the next day.
She served it with maple syrup on top.
This is similar to fried polenta, an Italian favorite. You deep fry
the polenta and
cover it with marinara sauce and some grated cheese.
But fried polenta is still mostly CORN MEAL!
Walt Lewis
consistancy of pasta dough. We cut a 1 gallon freezer zip lock bag
apart and put half on the bottom of the press, half on top of the
massa dough and press. Then you pick up the plastic and gently peel
off the dough, it IS tender so you have to be careful.
Walt Lewis
feel. I've followed the porportions on the maseca bag for "flour" and
water and then add a couple T of melted lard.
On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:23:05 -0600, "Nunya Bidnits"
Mike
"." <breoganm...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b1d934fa-2031-4a15...@t17g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
On Jan 28, 12:23 pm, "Nunya Bidnits" <nunyabidn...@eternal-
september.invalid> wrote:
> I'm intrigued by the method since I agree
> that the tamales we get are too often mostly rather mushy meal so you
> don't
> really get the flavor of the filling.
You guys just don't get it, do you? If you just want a *wrap*, just
make yourself a burrito in a flour tortilla.
But this thread is about tamales.
A tamale is ALL about the steamed corn meal, with just enough filling
inside, or mole drizzled over the finished tamale, to spice up the
bland taste of the nixtamalized white corn meal masa.
IOW, the corn meal is the staple, the filling and sauce is just a
flavoring.
Sounds Kinda like the way some people eat spaghetti with just a wee bit of
sauce on top. Screw that Nonsence Ladle the Sauce on go heavy with
Meatballs, Sausage, Mushrooms etc,etc
Mexicans use a lot of pork lard in tamales to enhance the flavor. You
could make a tamale NO filling at all, and it would taste great if you
used enough pork lard!
You guys are trying to *reverse* the proportions.
Didn't your Mom ever make corn meal mush for you when you were a kid?
No thank God.
A child has more active taste buds on his tongue and finds wonderful
flavors in
the blandest foods.
My Mom used to take left over corn meal mush and freeze it and then
fry it in a skillet the next day.
She served it with maple syrup on top.
This is similar to fried polenta, an Italian favorite. You deep fry
the polenta and
cover it with marinara sauce and some grated cheese.
But fried polenta is still mostly CORN MEAL!
That's ok you can have all the Mush you like, More power to you
Id rather have a tamale packed full of either Beef or Pork with some extra
sauce spooned over it.
You can give it a fancy new name if you like, but I will still call it a
Tamale
.
> That's ok you can have all the Mush you like, More power to you
Like I've said before, the essence of the antojito is greasy toasted
corn meal,
That's the taste you're trying to achieve. Fritos capture the taste
perfectly.
Tamales also have excellent portability if you need to carry them to
work, or you want to sell them in a supermarket parking lot.
>
> Id rather have a tamale packed full of either Beef or Pork with some extra
> sauce spooned over it.
> You can give it a fancy new name if you like, but I will still call it a
> Tamale
Well then, I have a better suggestion for you.
Make up your filling and get it simmering in a pot. Make little 1/2-
inch balls of masa and drop them into the simmering sauce.
There is a name for those little Mexican corn meal dumplings, but I've
forgotten what it is.
When the dumplings are done, ladle the mixture and dumplings into a
soup bowl and eat it with a spoon.
You'll have lots of beef and sauce and far less masa.
And you won't need any corn husks or a steamer...
Nunya Bidnits
> "." <breoganm...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:b1d934fa-2031-4a15...@t17g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> On Jan 28, 12:23 pm, "Nunya Bidnits" <nunyabidn...@eternal-
> september.invalid> wrote:
>
>> I'm intrigued by the method since I agree
>> that the tamales we get are too often mostly rather mushy meal so you
>> don't
>> really get the flavor of the filling.
>
> You guys just don't get it, do you? If you just want a *wrap*, just
> make yourself a burrito in a flour tortilla.
>
How do you get burrito from raw masa wrapped in a corn husk?
>
> But this thread is about tamales.
>
> A tamale is ALL about the steamed corn meal, with just enough filling
> inside, or mole drizzled over the finished tamale, to spice up the
> bland taste of the nixtamalized white corn meal masa.
>
> IOW, the corn meal is the staple, the filling and sauce is just a
> flavoring.
>
> Sounds Kinda like the way some people eat spaghetti with just a wee
> bit of sauce on top. Screw that Nonsence Ladle the Sauce on go
> heavy with Meatballs, Sausage, Mushrooms etc,etc
>
>
>
> Mexicans use a lot of pork lard in tamales to enhance the flavor. You
> could make a tamale NO filling at all, and it would taste great if you
> used enough pork lard!
>
> You guys are trying to *reverse* the proportions.
>
Who are you guys, and what proportions are you referring to in this thread?
I was asking for proportions, not stating them. So you haven't offered
anything useful, just some vague criticism of things that don't seem to
exist in the thread.
> Didn't your Mom ever make corn meal mush for you when you were a kid?
All the time, so I'll clip the rest of the lecture because I know exactly
what it is and I make it all the time, sliced right off the chub and fried
in bacon grease.
> This is similar to fried polenta, an Italian favorite. You deep fry
> the polenta and
> cover it with marinara sauce and some grated cheese.
Now we're talkin' tasty!
>
clipagain-
> Id rather have a tamale packed full of either Beef or Pork with some
> extra sauce spooned over it.
> You can give it a fancy new name if you like, but I will still call
> it a Tamale
I thought you just said there was only supposed to be a little bit of
filling in proportion to the masa, and now you seem to be saying the
opposite. And I'm not sure what new names you're referring to, at least not
in this thread.
MartyB in KC
.
> Sounds Kinda like the way some people eat spaghetti with just a wee bit of
> sauce on top. Screw that Nonsence Ladle the Sauce on go heavy with
> Meatballs, Sausage, Mushrooms etc,etc
Yeah, well, if you're from a poor village in Sicily, maybe you can't
afford to
use a snow shovel to pile the sauce on top of a handful of pasta.
It's the same thing with an *authentic* Mexican tamale. The villagers
didn't have very much meat, but they had the corn meal and the chiles
and a can of park lard, so they used a lot of lard in the masa and
very little meat inside the tamale.
Of course you can make it however you want nowadays, and you can call
it whatever you want.
sf
<breoganm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you serve greasy roasted duck in a crepe, that's Peking Duck...
Get out. Mu Shu is served in thin "pancakes". Peking Duck is served
in steamed buns the duck isn't greasy.
.
> Get out. Mu Shu is served in thin "pancakes". Peking Duck is served
> in steamed buns the duck isn't greasy.
There is now considerable variation in the serving of Peking duck.
This is especially the case in the West, where the dish is often
served by Cantonese restaurants.
In carving the duck, some restaurants serve the skin separately from
the meat.
Mu xu pancakes (Chinese pinyin: mu xu bing or bao bing, literally
“thin pancakes”) are often used in place of lotus leaf pancakes.
Other restaurants use pocket bread or mantou (steamed bun) in place of
pancakes.
A piece of cucumber is sometimes served along with the scallions to
balance the strong flavour and grease.
Some American restaurants even wrap the duck in Mexican flour
tortillas.
My own first experience with Peking Duck was during a bizarre three-
day motorcycle tour that took us through the Gold Country of
California's Sierra Nevada.
The tour organizer was an obnoxius Ashkenazi who couldn't even blame
his
lowbrow Yid behavior on being from Yonkers, he was a California
native.
His purpose in inviting me on the tour was to save money on
accomodations by splitting the cost three ways.
This jerk wanted to eat Chinese, but didn't want to spend $15 on
dinner, so he decided that we had to eat at a store front Chinese
restaurant in Sacramento.
Then the cheapskate Hebrew actually ordered *ala carte* in the Chinese
restaurant!
Imagine that. This Jew didn't understand the principle of, "with four
people you get free egg roll..."
I ordered the Peking Duck, and the waiter deftly applied the plum
sauce to the crepes, added scallions, and folded the greasy skin and
meat into the crepe.
I couldn't contain myself, and exclaimed, "Aha! Duck burritos!"
I insisted on sharing the Peking Duck with the other two members of
the motorcycle tour, and the Jew resisted at first, but he did eat
some of it and grudgingly split the bill equally three ways.
He wound up paying $15 for dinner in spite off his initial attempt to
be a cheapskate.
I wound up taking most of the Peking Duck home in a doggy bag and
finished it off
while enoying the High Sierra scenery of Sonora Pass...
I could go on and on about my experiences dining with Jews on a tour
of China and Hong Kong, too, but the underlying theme would always be
about their ignorant and selfish behavior at the table...
Ken Blake
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:00:33 -0800 (PST), "."
> <breoganm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If you serve greasy roasted duck in a crepe, that's Peking Duck...
>
> Get out. Mu Shu is served in thin "pancakes". Peking Duck is served
> in steamed buns
Perhaps not all the time, but Peking Duck is very commonly served in
pancakes.
> the duck isn't greasy.
Shouldn't be, but unfortunately sometimes is.
--
Ken Blake
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
sf
<breoganm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> He wound up paying $15 for dinner in spite off his initial attempt to
> be a cheapskate.
>
<snip>
>
> I could go on and on about my experiences dining with Jews on a tour
> of China and Hong Kong, too, but the underlying theme would always be
> about their ignorant and selfish behavior at the table...
They come in all nationalities and religions. One of my friends (half
Basque) was brought up with this phrase: Watch the pennies and the
dollars will take care of themselves. This guy was a cheapskate in
college... made Scrooge McDuck and Mr. Crabs look like a big spenders.
After graduation, he worked long days (every day for months) without a
break and was able to "retire" (before dot com and not that line of
work) well before 30, taking an around the world trip on a Windjammer.
Of course, ever the miser, he saved money by signing on to do some
crew work in exchange for discount passage. Finally, his friends got
to a point when they didn't think it wasn't funny anymore. He went to
a bachelor party where the check was to be split evenly - ordered a
house salad and one beer. He tried to cheap out by pointing out how
little he'd consumed vs how much they had. The attitude was tuff ruck
buddy; you participated, you pay! And he did. He was not so cheap
around friends after that and 20+ years later, still isn't.
Yvan Hall
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"Nunya Bidnits" <nunyab...@eternal-september.invalid> wrote in message
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