Savoury Tamales
Meat
(If you don’t want to add meat, you could instead just use some cheese.)
Big hunk of chicken or pork (like a roast)
1 white onion cut in about half
2 cloves of garlic
Pressure cook that on high for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile…
Salsa
(Instead of making your own salsa, you could just get some salsa verde.)
10 Dried Chiles, seeds and spines removed to remove spiciness (we used, mulato, ancho, guagillo, Padilla, panca, but others could work)
Soak them in hot water for 5 minutes or more
1 Roma tomato, cubed
1/2 the cooked onion from the meat (you may need to wait for this, feel free to instead prepare the “masa”)
1 and 1/2 tablespoons salt
Blend it up.
“Masa” (corn-meal-y filling)
6 cups maseca (you gotta buy it from a Mexican store or online, it’s not the same as cornmeal or corn flour even though it sounds similar)
2 tablespoon yeast
3 tablespoon Salt
12 tablespoons Lard
8 cups broth
It should have the consistency of kinetic sand before adding the broth (if it’s too crumbly, add more lard; if it’s too wet, add more maseca).
After adding the broth, it should have the consistency of PlayDough.
Cover to let it rise a little.
Assembly
Soak the corn husks in water for a few minutes.
Shred the meat.
Grab a corn husk with marrow half facing up. Schmear 2 tablespoons of masa on bottom half of corn husk, about half a centimeter thick. (This can be tricky.) Leave about an inch or two uncovered on the side to facilitate wrapping.
Add a tablespoon or so of meat and a tablespoon or so of salsa.
Roll it all up and fold over top half.
Place it open side facing upwards in a pressure cooker with a vegetable steamer insert at the bottom and an inch of water.
Don’t overfill the pressure cooker, as the tamales could get in the way of the steam.
Steam for 25 minutes.
Then let cool for 5 minutes and eat.
Sweet Tamales
3 cups maseca
1 1/2 cup melted butter
1 tablespoon yeast
2 jello packets
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1-2 cups of hot water
Again, before adding the water, it should feel like kinetic sand (if too dry, add more butter, if too wet add more maseca.)
After adding the water, it should have consistency of wet play dough . If too dry, add more water, if too wet, add more maseca..
Similarly fill tortillas. Optionally add cranberries, nuts, or other berries.
Cook and serve the same.
