“Where’s the Mexican?” is what my Colombian friend Alex said he thought to himself while looking at photos of my tamale-making “party.” I smiled coyly at him and pointed at myself, adding a look that asked “Can it please be me?”
I showed my Mexican friend, Maria, this video and she laughed the entire time. I was slightly insulted, as I thought she was laughing at me. It turned out she was laughing out of sheer delight at my “audacity” to go and spend an entire day making tamales “just because.”
Well, this sort of all day, “just because” activity will likely not be happening again before January, as I am now in the final (finally!) phases of my Master’s program, meaning I’m up to my ears in preparing for oral comprehensive exams and a thesis-writing, among other things (such as applying to Ph.D. programs and attending a thousand weddings). Although, I’m pretty sure that precisely because I have these things to focus on, there will be lots more all day food-related gatherings this summer and fall. At least, I hope there will!
The week before the tamale making, I read (and re-read and re-read) the chapter on them in Rick Bayless’ Authentic Mexican, and decided that because my friend Steve, who would be partaking in the madness, is a vegetarian that we’d go with a rajas con queso filling (fire-roasted poblano and quesadilla cheese) and vegetable shortening rather than lard for the masa dough. We also made a tomatillo sauce to spoon over the tamales and served them with two other salsas Steve had on hand (one of which was an apple salsa he’d made and canned last summer…I sense a guest appearance in the future).
I contemplated writing out the entire recipe on how to make masa dough, form the tamales, cook them, etc., but I know that there are a lot of resources out there that can probably give better advice than I can. After all, my experience with making tamales is limited to that one, “just because” day. I am, however, including a recipe for the sauce we used as well as a few links to resources for anyone without family recipes or traditions to draw from.
Quick-Cooked Tomatillo-Chile Sauce
(from Authentic Mexican)
Ingredients:
1 lb (11 med.) fresh tomatillos, husked and washed
2 serrano peppers
5-6 sprigs cilantro, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 T vegetable oil
2 cups broth (we went with homemade vegetable stock and salt)
salt
Boil the fresh tomatillos and chiles in salted water to cover until tender, 10-15 minutes, drain.
Place the tomatioos and chiles in a blender or food processor, along with the cilantro, garlic and onion. Process until smooth.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium high. Pour the sauce in all at once and stir constantly for 4-5 minutes, until darker and thicker. Add the broth, return it to a boil, and reduce the heat to medium and simmer until thick enough to coat a spoon, about 10 minutes.
Season to taste.
Tamale-making resources:
Rick Bayless’ Authentic Mexican (this cookbook is a really handy reference; mine is also signed!)
Sweet Corn Tamales Recipe(another of Bayless’)
The Paupered Chef (in all honesty, it was this blog post that gave me the final nudge to go ahead and give it a try)
If you know of any other good resources, please let me know! Perhaps, as evidenced by my seemingly life-time commitment to academia, I’m one of those people who likes to learn as much as she can about things most other people might (maybe!) give two seconds of thought to.