Someone's making tamales...and it's ME! Share your masa...

[Poll_Blind]

...favorite masa ingredients! We're not cooking them today but we'll be hitting the store. I like grinding up poblanos and a couple of chipotles but lately I've heard tales of mixing roasted corn in too.

  Doesn't have to be too specific, I'm just interested in what kinds of things you find make interesting masa additions. I'm pretty sure we're going to be doing all-carnitas. I've had some tamales with an olive and, I believe, a fig(?) or a date in them among the meat: If anyone's got unique filling ideas I'd also love to hear them!

  I love making tamales with my Lady, we don't do it nearly enough and it's so much fun. And I love the gossip that goes around the table once we get to filling them! We make, I dunno, something like 60-80 tamales in a pop.

Thanks!

PB

[EFerrari]

1. Definitely, roasted FRESH corn. My first masa and still my favorite.

:)

[Poll_Blind]

2. Thanks! I think we're going to give it a try! n/t

PB

[Lost-in-FL]

3. Tamales??

Did I just heard that?? :9

[EFerrari]

4. Lol! I know, I'm salivating here!

After the election, I'm going to the Mission to buy the right chiles and then, LOOK OUT!

Once you've had a fresh tamale, well, you're a goner.

:)

[EFerrari]

5. So, so, how did they turn out?!

:)

[Poll_Blind]

6. They turned out pretty good! I still have a long ways to go when it...

...comes to flattening out the masa properly before adding the meat. Basically, the hallmark of my signature creations is that they give the impression of a hotdog in a bun, with the filling being the hotdog. Now, oddly, we wound up making masa from two different types of masa mixes. My girlfriend and I always used a certain brand (can't remember at the moment) but it was always a little on the dry side.

  Some friends of ours came over- they just had a baby a month ago and the mother wanted to learn how to make tamales. They brought over the "wrong" masa mix but (can't remember the name either) but it's a real improvement over the stuff we were using. It has a real doughy consistency- quite a bit like well-oiled bread dough, which makes it really easy to spread around in the husk. When it cooks up, it cooks up and sets up like any other masa.

  So I think next time we're going to switch to that stuff. Otherwise, they were excellent. I love the variation in size- if I'm feeling hungry I can grab a grand-daddy or if I'm just looking for a snack, a little pee-wee.

  The filling was absolutely execellent, though. Just pork, cilantro, green peppers, garlic (lots of garlic) and onions. I kept wanting to just make tortas with the filling- it's just so damned good!

  I don't know how familiar you folks are with po-boys. They're french bread sandwiches from New Orleans. Very good- often have interesting ingredients (sometimes crazy stuff like fried oysters). Anyway, I'm also a big fan of tortas and I'm sorely tempted to make a batch just for french bread po-boy stile sandwiches/tortas.

  Would be extremely hard to turn down, omg! I'm thinking of trying to make a spicy mayonnaise (with some Pico-Pica (a hot sauce)) and just a smidge of a some chicken n tomato powder (can't remember the brand again, it's a powdered stock base with a picture of a chicken trying to "hatch" tomatoes on the label).

  I made the mistake of getting a cheap tamale pot and we couldn't use it this go-round and, mind-blowingly the local carnicaria was out of all sizes of tamale pots. No biggie, we whipped something together with a veggie steamer insert and everything came out fine.

PB

[msedano]

7. Good election. Now, about them tamales...

I would mix nothing but lard in my masa. nothing exotic. even if you're using masa harina instead of buying the masa preparada from the store. Where are you, that there isn't a masa seller around?

http://hometown.aol.com/msedano/5points.htm

the chile and the innards make the tamal.

i make my chile from negro, pasilla, new mexico, anaheim (california). soak the pods several hours then whiz in a blender. force the material thru a sieve to make a rich thick paste. season with salt and garlic and onion, or do so to the meat. add the chile paste to slooowww cooked beef brisket / tri-tip, even pork if you like, but tomatillo (green) sauce is better. a raja of roasted chile (remove the seed, peel the skin, and make three strips of a fat hatch NM chile) and a stip of queso oaxaca / mozarella / jack. black olives absochingaolutely required in tamales.

check this place out, folks: http://www.iurd.org/mamasHotTamales/


(image detail from the great city of tenochtitlan, palacio nacional, mexico df by diego rivera)
edited to add chile image.