I have to admit tamales has never been my favorite dish in Mexican cuisine. It's mainly the texture of the corn mealy that puts me off. Most I have had in my days tend to be grainy and bland from the result of both under seasoning and lack of fat content. However for a friend's Mexican themed party tonight I decided to give Rick Bayless version of Red Chile Pork Tamales a try.
Ingredients
Filling:
16 medium dried guajillo chiles, stemmed, seeded and torn into pieces
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 tsp cumin freshly ground
1/2 tsp black pepper freshly ground
1 1/2 lbs lean boneless pork shoulder cut into 1/2 inches cubes
Salt
Batter:
1 1/4 cups pork lard, slightly soften but not at all runny
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 1/2 cps dried masa harina w/ 21/4 ups hot water
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
2 dozen corn husk
Directions
First make the filling with requires combining the first 4 items under filling along with 2.5 cups of water in a blender and blend until its a smooth purée. Strain the mixture through a strainer into a medium saucepan.
Add the pork, 1 tsp salt and 3 cups of water, simmer uncovered over medium heat until the meat is fork tender and the sauce is reduced to a thick consistency, about 1.5 hr. Break apart the meat and let it cool to room temperature. Taste and add salt if necessary.
For the batter, in an electric mixture on medium high speed beat the lard, 2 tsp salt and baking powder until light in texture, about 1 min. Continue beating as you add the masa in 3 additions. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add 1.5 cup of broth to obtain a soft cake batter consistency but not runny. It should hold its texture on a spoon. Taste an salt if necessary.
Refrigerate the batter for an hour then rebeat, adding enough additional broth to bring the mixture to the soft consistency it had before.
Soften the corn husk by soaking them in hot boiling water for an hour or until pliable.
Wrap the tamales by laying the corn husk with the tapered end towards you. Spread about 1/4 cup of the masa, spreading it out evenly into an 8 x 4 rectangle. Scoop about 2 tbs of the pork on top, then fold over the right part to combine the masa.
Fold up the bottom tappered part of the corn husk and then roll and tie with a thin piece of corn husk. Make sure you don't tie too tight as the masa will expand when steamed.
Place in a steamer making sure they are all laid down and not stacked otherwise they will not cook evenly. Once the husk pulls away from the masa they are done.
For the best texture let the tamales cool completely and then steam again for15 mins to heat them through.
As you can see by the recipe the ingredients and steps are pretty straight forward. It may seem kind of tedious but the actual hands on time is not really long. The resulting tamales were creamy in flavor with a slight hint of heat from the peppers. The masa were not at all grainy but instead light in texture. In addition when in the steamer the tamales gave off a wonderful rich corn aroma similar to that of corn chowder. This recipe completely changed my view of the dish and I can't wait to try Bayless' Green Chicken version.
Tips:
- I know some of you may be a little started by the need for lard in this recipe, however as Bayless says, lard actually has less saturated fat and cholesterol than butter.
- To make lard, simply put the fat cut from the pork shoulders into a baking dish and set it in the oven at 275F. After 2 hrs the fat should have rendered out resulting in a golden color, hence the culinary term "liquid gold".
