But on to the next thing. We got a little more adventurous and made tamales last week. It was an interesting experience. First off, the corn husks had a weird vinegar smell to them, possibly so they don't mold? Then after spending a while researching (mostly watching Good Eats) we figured out (to my surprise) that fine cornmeal and maza (with which you traditionally make tameles) are not the same thing. But we trekked on. (It turns out that 'hot tamales', an actual food, not just a candy that no one eats, are made with cornmeal, so there is some precedent).
Here's the dough, which is blue cornmeal (cool color), water, shortening (usually lard), and spices- we used oregano, and lime zest.
We made the filling with fresh corn, black beans, jack cheese, cilantro, and lime juice.
The assembly line:
Here are the pretty packages cooking:
We don't have a steamer so I put an upside-down pie plate in the bottom of the pot (I think that's an Alton Brown trick but I can't remember) and put them around and on top of that. And it's here that we ran into the slight problem. Twice the water boiled all out and burned...well a lot- the bottom of the pot, the pie pan, the ends of the tamales. Lucky for us, tamales have their own protective shell. So the results were still very tasty, although the pot is now warped. At least it didn't get a hole burned through it.
Purple and delicious:
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