My Grandmother's Tamale Recipe, Plus the Tools That Make Them Easy to Make — MBG Home — Modern Brown Girl | Amplifying Brown Voices, One Story at a Time (2024)

FAQs

What does baking soda do to tamale masa? ›

Masa para tamales (dough for tamales) is a blend of nixtamalized corn—fresh or dried—with lots of fat for richness, baking powder to leaven and lighten the dough, salt for seasoning, and flavorful broth to bind it all together and hydrate the dough.

Like corn husks, parchment paper offers a thin, malleable material that can keep seasoned contents inside the folded envelope. Although parchment-paper-wrapped tamales may not offer the subtle flavor corn husks impart, the glossy paper can get a tamale-making task done.

Tamales originated in Mesoamerica as early as 8000 to 5000 BC. The preparation of tamales is likely to have spread from the indigenous cultures in Guatemala and Mexico to the rest of Latin America. According to archaeologists Karl Taube, William Saturno, and David Stuart, tamales may date from around 100 AD.

Corn husks can't be used right out of the bag. They need to be soaked in hot water for at least 1 hour prior to tamale making so they don't crack when you fold them. Just fill a large container with hot water and submerge the corn husks by placing a heavy weight bowl on top to keep them under the water.

Steaming tamales without a steamer basket requires a setup that lifts the tamales above boiling water and also allows steam to penetrate them. You can use a metal colander or an overturned bowl in a pot of boiling water with chopsticks balanced on top. You can also grill or pan fry tamales.

The Penny Trick

To check your water level and avoid a scorched pot, place a penny below the steamer basket and fill with water. It should rattle while the tamales are cooking.

The masa and lard will make the base of the tamale dough, in a ratio of 5 pounds masa to 1 pound lard. The beef will make the filling, and should weigh 5 pounds before it gets cooked to every 5 pounds masa.

Vegetable shortening is a meat-free and dairy-free substitute for lard, allowing you to serve tamales to meat eaters and vegans alike. That said, there are other substitutes for lard that will work well in tamale recipes as well, like refined coconut oil, butter, and avocado oil.

It's from the preservatives used to keep them from molding. Bring a LARGE pot of water to boil on the stove and place the rinsed corn husks inside. Boil for about 15-20 minutes, cover, and let them sit overnight until you need them for assembly.

What is a delta tamale? ›

Tamales from the Mississippi Delta are smaller than Latin-style tamales, are simmered instead of steamed, have a gritty texture from the use of corn meal instead of corn flour, have considerably more spice, and are usually served with juice that is the byproduct of simmering.

They would use lime-slake or wood ash to infuse amino acids to increase the nutritional value of the maize. This ingredient would then be ground upon a metate to create the corn-dough masa (also used to form tortillas) and boiled in corn husks or plantain leaves to make tamales.

Tamales were originally cooked over hot ashes in a buried fire. Later, when Spanish conquistadors brought pots and pans, women started steaming the corn-wrapped packages. The Spanish also introduced more flavors, adding meat and lard to the vegetable delights.

You can use an electric pressure cooker or a large pot, a vegetable steamer basket or rack from your pressure cooker are great tools to use with either the pressure cooker or pot. But even if you don't have either the vegetable steamer basked or Instant Pot, you can still use some very basic items to steam the tamales.

You can serve tamales with a variety of sides such as fried plantains, potatoes with rajas, Mexican rice and black beans. “When planning a tamalada, or tamal party, you can accompany your tamales with bowls of red and green salsa, crumbled cotija cheese or queso fresco, fresh lime and pickled red onion,” Sibley says.