Tamales

A restaurant here makes great tamales and sells them frozen in the local Albertsons. I am partial to the green chile and cheese. About $4.99 for 6. I had 2 for lunch today.

There is also a lovely woman named Norma who makes fantastic tamales and takes pre-orders for them at offices and businesses in my former little village, then delivers them on Fridays. Red chile and pork are my favorite of hers. I think. $12/dozen.

What kind do you prefer? Are they readily available where you are? How expensive are they? Have you ever made your own?

I host a number of football parties every year and for the first time last year I made some tamales for a game. They were chorizo and chipotle pepper and disappeared in the blink of an eye. I put out a number of sides so people could customize their tamales. Everyone loved them so they are now a new tradition at my parties.

I had never heard of Tamales until Food TV (thus American food programs) came here. This and Mole, often featured on Iron Chef America, now also popular on Ugly Betty.
What exactly are they?

I had never heard of Tamales until Food TV (thus American food programs) came here. This and Mole, often featured on Iron Chef America, now also popular on Ugly Betty.
What exactly are they?

You take a corn husk and press a masa (a white corn meal) and lard mixture into it. Then you fill it with you choice of meat and spices. Then you roll it up, and steam the batch. They are served with a variety of sauces.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/Tamale_Recipe.htm

More than you could want to know, Sue, plus photos!


The restaurant versions here don't use lard, there are several places that make vegetarian versions, but Norma uses lard.

I love making tamales, I use a Rick Bayless recipe for pork tamales. -RP

Those look excellent, Randy.

[Robin Garr]

Are they readily available where you are? How expensive are they? Have you ever made your own?

They're widely available here at all the ethnic taquerias and most of the larger Latino-run Mexican eateries; less so at the Americanized joints. They're virtually always made with green chiles and pork.

In our parents' time, before there were authentic Mexican eateries here, a local bar food tradition used to be a bowl of Midwest-style "chile con carne" over spaghetti with a canned tamale plopped on top. Pass the Rolaids, please?

You take a corn husk and press a masa (a white corn meal) and lard mixture into it. Then you fill it with you choice of meat and spices. Then you roll it up, and steam the batch. They are served with a variety of sauces.

I take it you don't eat the husk. So do you buy these corn husks, or do you buy ears of corn, eat the corn then use the husks to make the tamales. Seems like they are quite yellowed, not the light green colour of the fresh husks that we get here. I'm imagining if they are so popular, there must be a market in corn husks on their own.

Oh yes. One can buy bags of the dried husks. And the masa.

Robin, that is a truly horrible-sounding concoction.

[Robin Garr]

Robin, that is a truly horrible-sounding concoction.

It was actually sort of a guilty pleasure, but we've outgrown it ...

This is so sad Cynthia...but I have never had a tamale! There are no good Mexican restaurants by me...I would need to go to NYC I think.

We have some excellent pizza though

There are ladies who have a booth at the Farmer's Market and I have tried theirs. They sell chicken, pork and beef, with three types of sauces, green, red and a red spicy. I find that when I try tamale's I dislike how thick the cornmeal is, and how little meat is used. Is it not possible to make a thinner cornmeal with more meat? I have made tamalie pie but never tamales.

[Jenise]

You take a corn husk and press a masa (a white corn meal) and lard mixture into it. Then you fill it with you choice of meat and spices. Then you roll it up, and steam the batch. They are served with a variety of sauces.

I take it you don't eat the husk. So do you buy these corn husks, or do you buy ears of corn, eat the corn then use the husks to make the tamales. Seems like they are quite yellowed, not the light green colour of the fresh husks that we get here. I'm imagining if they are so popular, there must be a market in corn husks on their own.

The dry husks one starts with are a pale, bleached off white color. Under cooking, they yellow. They are sold in bags that must contain 100 or so each, and are quite cheap.

In Los Angeles where I grew up, pork in a seasoned red chile sauce is the standard filling. Many restaurants now offer chicken and green chile/cheese variations but pork is still the most common.

Yes, I've made my own tamales. The first time was rather long ago, a project with two girlfriends. We didn't leave the ends open as Randy shows in his picture (great looking tamales, Randy), but made envelopes in which both ends were folded under. That was typical of the Southern California style tamale I grew up with. And when we were done and compared our separate piles of Mexican goodness, we found that though we had all taken the same steps there was a marked difference between each of ours. Gina's were long and skinny. Annabelle's were about half the length of Gina's but quite stout. Mine were somewhere in between. It made a lively party that night when we served them to guests that night and told everybody they'd been modelled after our husbands.

I've since made other trendier combinations a la Mark Miller/Coyote Cafe. Duck is a favorite.

But best of all is to find a good Mexican restaurant or taqueria who will sell them by the dozen. It's surprisingly hard to find good ones, though--many are underseasoned or too dry, or the corn meal is clumsy and stiff instead of tender or too thick compared to the filling.

I can't see the image in Randy's post, just the word "image." OK, Cynthia, what did you break?

I can't see the image in Randy's post, just the word "image." OK, Cynthia, what did you break?

Must be you, Stu - looks fine to me. Though I still can't understand this factuation with this southern dish.

[Jenise]

I can't see the image in Randy's post, just the word "image." OK, Cynthia, what did you break?

Must be you, Stu - looks fine to me. Though I still can't understand this factuation with this southern dish.

Not to be pedantic but not southern, Sue, but Mexican/Latino, and therefore an adoptee of Southwestern cuisine which is nothing like southern cuisine (which is famous for ham, grits, greens, gumbos, fried chicken and the like, though there are sub-regional specialities within that). Not that I can blame you for finding it confusing from afar, but I'm just sayin'. We might do well to throw in the pronunciation, too: singular, it's tuh-MAH-leh, if one attempts a Latino accent and tuh-MAW-lee if one doesn't.

Not to be pedantic but not southern, Sue, but Mexican/Latino, and therefore an adoptee of Southwestern cuisine which is nothing like southern cuisine (which is famous for ham, grits, greens, gumbos, fried chicken and the like, though there are sub-regional specialities within that). Not that I can blame you for finding it confusing from afar, but I'm just sayin'. We might do well to throw in the pronunciation, too: singular, it's tuh-MAH-leh, if one attempts a Latino accent and tuh-MAW-lee if one doesn't.

WB Jenise. Yes, confused.
Bobby Flay alwasy seems to be cooking tamales and his specialty comes across as southern cuisine. Then , there's the Ugly Betty connection, i.e. Mexican / Latino. We learn all the time.

I've only had authentic tamales a couple of times, but I love 'em!

We have a woman who comes by once every three or four weeks, always on Thursday night. We only know her as "Tamale Lady". She's either on a three-wheeled bicycle with a cooler between the back wheels or in a beat up old Monte Carlo. The tamales are $7.50 for a half dozen. You can get chicken, pork, or vegetable and they're wonderful. We buy them, eat some, and freeze the rest.

The probability that her kitchen has never been certified by public health officials has crossed my mind, but we've been eating these tamales for somewhere around eight years now with no problems.

The probability that her kitchen has never been certified by public health officials has crossed my mind, but we've been eating these tamales for somewhere around eight years now with no problems.

Has your kitchen been certified by public health officials? Mine hasn't! I'd never let them in the door!

Amen, regarding kitchen.

LESSON: Before I moved from PA to NM in 1971, I tried Mexican food in a Swanson TV dinner. How could they eat this crap, I wondered.
MORAL: A good tamale is a good tamale: that's really the secret whether you'd like them or not.

The probability that her kitchen has never been certified by public health officials has crossed my mind, but we've been eating these tamales for somewhere around eight years now with no problems.

Has your kitchen been certified by public health officials? Mine hasn't! I'd never let them in the door!

Yep - the thought was a pretty fleeting one and lasted about two bites into the first tamale.

I love a good original Mexican tamale. Not all tamales!! There are a couple Mexican grocery stores near where I live that sell homemade ones on the weekend (in the back of the store out of a cooler -- no health department advice wanted). I have to get there early to get my fix. They are packaged by the half-dozen and sell for either $6 or $7 for that quantity. They are quite substantial so I don't mind the price. My favorite is the pork with verde sauce, but I am also partial to the ones with chorizo and chicken with either the red sauce or the mole. Just give me one, damnit! I tried to make them once -- only once! Too much work, and they are too readily available and too cheap to go through all the effort! But, they are surely a treat whenever I have them.