Tamales...help!?!

[aunt betty]

Several years ago I had the sweetest Mexican lady as a neighbor. Her name was Teresa and her husband was Hernesto.
I grew cherry tomatoes in my front yard and their grandson could not keep his hands of the ¨tomatitios¨. I told them not to worry. No big deal. ¨De nada¨.

That little bit of generocity paid of big time one day. Teresa made tamales just for me and my wife. OMG they were the best thing I have ever eaten but there was a language barrier. I only speak espanol un poco.

Does anyone make authentic Tamales and can share how they do it especially focusing on the sauce because I'd like to try and recreate what she did that summer years ago. Green and red sauce please. I'm pretty sure Teresa used cherry tomatoes to make the red sauce.
Thanks.

[cluckmeister]

AB my wife makes these from time to time and theyre as good as any Ive had from our local mom and pop Mexican Café


Ingredients
◾5 lbs. lean pork or beef, cooked and shredded
◾6 to 7 lbs. fresh masa
◾1 1/2 lbs lard
◾1 tbls. salt
◾1 1/2 pts. red chili sauce
◾1 bundle oujas (corn shucks)


Instructions
1.To make tamales, cook meat by boiling in a large covered pot with enough water to cover completely.
2.Add salt to taste and slow boil till completely done. Cool meat and save broth.
3.When meat has cooled, shred and mix in the chili sauce
4.Corn Shucks:
5.To prepare the corn shucks ( outer husks), soak them in a sink or large pot of warm water for about 2 hours or until soft. Gently separate without tearing.
6.Masa:
7.Make masa by hand or with Mixer.
8.Mix the masa, lard , salt and enough broth to make a smooth paste.
9.Beat till a small amount (1 tsp) will float in a cup of cool water.
10.Spread masa (1/8 to 1/4 inch thick layer, or to preference) on ouja, add a small amount of meat and roll up.
11.Fold up ends of ouja and place(fold down) on a rack in a pan deep enough to steam.
12.Add 1 to 2 inches water, cover with a tight fitting lid and steam about 1 1/2 hours. (a cloth can be used under the lid to make a tighter fit)

She buys the red chili sauce and corn husks at a Mexican grocery store in the barrio across town

[aunt betty]

AB my wife makes these from time to time and theyre as good as any Ive had from our local mom and pop Mexican Café


Ingredients
◾5 lbs. lean pork or beef, cooked and shredded
◾6 to 7 lbs. fresh masa
◾1 1/2 lbs lard
◾1 tbls. salt
◾1 1/2 pts. red chili sauce
◾1 bundle oujas (corn shucks)


Instructions
1.To make tamales, cook meat by boiling in a large covered pot with enough water to cover completely.
2.Add salt to taste and slow boil till completely done. Cool meat and save broth.
3.When meat has cooled, shred and mix in the chili sauce
4.Corn Shucks:
5.To prepare the corn shucks ( outer husks), soak them in a sink or large pot of warm water for about 2 hours or until soft. Gently separate without tearing.
6.Masa:
7.Make masa by hand or with Mixer.
8.Mix the masa, lard , salt and enough broth to make a smooth paste.
9.Beat till a small amount (1 tsp) will float in a cup of cool water.
10.Spread masa (1/8 to 1/4 inch thick layer, or to preference) on ouja, add a small amount of meat and roll up.
11.Fold up ends of ouja and place(fold down) on a rack in a pan deep enough to steam.
12.Add 1 to 2 inches water, cover with a tight fitting lid and steam about 1 1/2 hours. (a cloth can be used under the lid to make a tighter fit)

She buys the red chili sauce and corn husks at a Mexican grocery store in the barrio across town

I found the salsa verde recipe and was wanting to try and make something from cherry tomatoes so it would be sweet like when Teresa made it. Probably just cooked them down. I got the corn shucks, lard, and maseca already. I'm planning on smoking a big pork butt roast and then using about two pounds of that meat in the Tamales. Need to get tomatillos and the pork butt roast.
Never made these before. Tamales at restaurants around here...suck.
If there's a hot mexican chica at the store I'll ask her to ¨viene a mi casa¨ and show me how.

[cluckmeister]

AB the reason it tasted sweet isn't nessisarily the cherry tomatoes, I put a bit of sugar and honey in all my salsa.

[rank duck]

Cluck - that looks great. Have been wanting to try tamales forever.

How do you cook the meat for shredding?

How many corn shucks should there be in a bundle?

Thanks for posting this.

AB, thanks for inquiring.

[cluckmeister]

RD, Im not sure how many husks are in a package, the wife buys them and I never see them until they are ready to eat, as for the meat she just fixes it in a crock pot on low for about 6 hours, adds a bit of salt, pepper, etc just as she does for roast and noodles. Pork can be fixed the same way

[aunt betty]

This weekend I will tackle this first-time tamale thing. It will either be great or not.
Probably good. Everything culinary I've touched lately turns out good. Must be the hand-washing.

The one thing that I am procrastinating about is the corn shucks. Why not use fresh ones since it's corn season?
Not too worried about the pork...it's pulled pork pretty much so ain't sweating it.
Have a way with sauces...used to be a sauce chef at a restaurant about 35 years ago.
The dough is easy and I have a really nice canner/steamer so it's looking like AOK.

Tamales are fairly simple and am overcomplicating it trying to be perfect on the first try. Screw it, just dive in.

[pothole hunter]

are the tamales in the water during cooking or above just in the steam

[cluckmeister]

are the tamales in the water during cooking or above just in the steam

a steamer basket should be used if possible and the tamales are above the steam. The steamer basket should have a rack in side to hold the tamales above the water

[aunt betty]

Smoked a boston pork butt roast Thursday and have some left. Maybe tomorrow.
I'll take some pictures if/when I get around to doing this tamalexperimente.

Turns out I live in the barrio...two messican grocerias within walking distance.

[sureshot 612]

the pork roast I use is a cheep shoulder roast .I salt it down and put it in a crock pot. the small store has different dried peppers the larger ones are are not so hot and the small ones are hotter I mix them about 50/50 ,I put them in a pot and boil till they are soft ,then I pull them out on a plate to cool ,then cut off stem slice open pull out seeds and strings .take a butter knife scrape the meat off the skin of the inside of the pepper and save with the water you boiled the peppers in and that is what you put in the crock pot with the pork, cook pork till it shreds.also save some of the water you biold the peppers in for the masa ,it will add flavor to the dough .if you do it right its an all day affair but worth it. the meat from inside your peppers is your red chili sauce this is all from scratch ,no jar sauce her

[aunt betty]

Just started making the salsa verde. I want green and red tamales. NOT optional.
Using this recipe for the green sauce.
The roasted version. It's easy as heck. Used two jalepenos and it's about right for my weak midwestern taste.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sals ... ecipe.html


Found this tamale masa dough recipe. Cutting it in half. The spices sound good.
http://mexicanfood.about.com/od/delicio ... edough.htm

[aunt betty]

Been watching videos. LOTS of them and this one explains it pretty well.
I'm going to use sauce and mix it with the meat before building the tamales.
That is what Theresa did and OMG was it good.

http://allrecipes.com/video/141/how-to- ... etail.aspx

[aunt betty]

[aunt betty]

I got the tamales assembly line going!

[aunt betty]

[aunt betty]

Steamer. It's actually a very old canner/steamer from sears. USA. #1
:D

No BEANS!

[aunt betty]

Some came untied.

[aunt betty]

Ohyeah

[cluckmeister]

Ab looks like they came out good. Hope your cooking is safer than my daughter and grandsons, they started making homemade pizza yesterday . Turned the over to preheat and thought they had everything out of the oven, Well guess what they didn't see a black spatula and it blew up in the oven, a big boom and thick black smoke every where, We got a new oven today, courtesy of them LOL

[redheaded]

Those tamales look great, is there any way duck or goose meat could be shredded and substituted?