20141109
Tried to make tamales this past weekend. I think the filling turned out really well, but bread-and-butter of a tamale is the masa. And we had two failed attempt at it.
Most of the info is based on joepastry:
http://www.joepastry.com/2012/making-classic-tamales/
But the more experience I get, the less I trust joe pastry’s tamale instructions.
First, for the filling — it’s basically shredded braised/boiled pork with chili sauce.
Shredded chili pork filling
- deseed/de-stem and toast and soak dried ancho chiles in hot water for 30 minutes.
- blend/liquefy the chiles with lots of garlic and onion and cumin
- (I strained it, but I don’t think I’ll ever do that again)
- use some to make chili soup to boil/braise pork for min 2 hours, I did 5 hours
- shred pork with fork, mix with sauce (I didn’t mix with sauce, and that complicated the folding)
Masa
Mistake 1:
Bought “fresh” masa from HEB, and used straight masa for tamales
result: really gummy and flavorless tamales.
Reina, mexican lady at work, says to not use the masa from HEB, it’s too old by the time you use it and tastes off. Also, I need to add salt and lard to the masa to make it palatable.
Mistake 2:
Grace tried to mix masa with lard and baking powder and salt
Result: Better, much better, but still very bitter (baking powder?) and a little wet
Need to not use “fresh masa” from HEB, and not add baking powder.
Had the opportunity to eat fresh, homemade tamales from Reina, these are the notes I took from talking to her, and examining her tamales:
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The “fresh” masa from HEB is no good. She says it’s too old by the time you use it. Only use Maseca para tamales, the instant masa I bought from Kroger.
she brought tamales to work today. Noticed several things:
Her Masa appears to be pretty batter-ry.
Folding is not that important, it’s OK if some meat is spewing out.
She did not tie her tamales – probable saves lots of folding effort
There is zero bitterness in her masa, she said to make sure the masa is somewhat fresh.
She mixes her sauce and meat together beforehand.
She has huge amounts of UNSTRAINED chiles in her meat,it makes very little textural difference.
use water to boil pork to flavor masa
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Below are pics of Reina’s tamales:
Learned lots from this experience. I am eager to try again when I have more time.