I cooked the meat yesterday. Slightly freezerburned boneless chicken
thighs, slow cooked in their own juice with a little garlic and onions
until they fell apart. Shredded the meat and mixed in chile paste made
from pasilla and dundicutt peppers and more garlic. Next time I'll use
ancho instead of pasilla, the pasilla are not as good. (Dundicutt is a
round hot dried pepper from India; it has a lot better flavor than cayenne.)

The corn husks are soaking in hot water.

The goose fat doesn't hold as much air when you whip it as lard does
(it's too soft) so I cheated and added a little baking powder to the
masa. Probably not enough BP to do any good; 1/2 tsp to 2 cups of masa
harina and about 1.5 cups of "chicken picante" bouillon.

The corn husks are huge, so I may end up with about 8 to 10 extra-large
tamales instead of the 18 or 20 normal ones that I planned.

If it's a disaster, the dog loves the masa, and the chicken peccadillo
is pretty good for making tacos.

It starts in about 2 hours. (got stuff to do first).

Bob