I've been craving tamales for the past month. I remember as a kid
eating Red's Tamales. Haven't seen any in years. Memories are probably
better than their actual taste. Have recently tried some from Trader
Joe's. They were good, but I wanted to try my hand at making homemade
tamales.

We had some left over chipotle pork that had been cooked in the slow
cooker. I combined this with 3 cans of Stagg no bean chili. Added some
additional chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, fresh ground pepper and
cooking oil as a filling for the tamales. I shredded the pork and
added some shredded chicken.

I found the corn husks in the international foods section of our local
Belair supermarket. Also found the masa corn mix in the same section.

Soaked the corn husks for about 2-hours and tried to find ones that
were not torn. The hardest part was trying to find where the split
began on the bunch of husks. Kind of like finding the end of a piece
of Scotch tape when it is stuck on the roll.

I got the Masa part of the recipe from this website. It also shows how
to roll, fold and steam the tamales:

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

My wife had never made homemade tamales, either. We sat down together
and rolled out about 50 of them. The masa mixture was about as thick
as peanut butter. I used 2-pounds of dry masa to make about 50
tamales.

Steamed them for 2-hours. Wow are they good. Now I have to find the
freezer bags for all of the extras we made.

This was a fun project, but it takes some time. If you are going to do
it, make plenty.


Rusty
Sacramento, CA

Rusty wrote:

> I've been craving tamales for the past month. I remember as a kid
> eating Red's Tamales. Haven't seen any in years. Memories are probably
> better than their actual taste. Have recently tried some from Trader
> Joe's. They were good, but I wanted to try my hand at making homemade
> tamales.
>
> We had some left over chipotle pork that had been cooked in the slow
> cooker. I combined this with 3 cans of Stagg no bean chili. Added some
> additional chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, fresh ground pepper and
> cooking oil as a filling for the tamales. I shredded the pork and
> added some shredded chicken.
>
> I found the corn husks in the international foods section of our local
> Belair supermarket. Also found the masa corn mix in the same section.
>
> Soaked the corn husks for about 2-hours and tried to find ones that
> were not torn. The hardest part was trying to find where the split
> began on the bunch of husks. Kind of like finding the end of a piece
> of Scotch tape when it is stuck on the roll.
>
> I got the Masa part of the recipe from this website. It also shows how
> to roll, fold and steam the tamales:
>
> http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/Tamale_Recipe.htm
>
> My wife had never made homemade tamales, either. We sat down together
> and rolled out about 50 of them. The masa mixture was about as thick
> as peanut butter. I used 2-pounds of dry masa to make about 50
> tamales.
>
> Steamed them for 2-hours. Wow are they good. Now I have to find the
> freezer bags for all of the extras we made.
>
> This was a fun project, but it takes some time. If you are going to do
> it, make plenty.
>
> Rusty
> Sacramento, CA

Y'all ever tried the sweet tamales? Flavored with sugar, egg, anise seed,
raisins, pineapple or nuts sometimes, might be nice with a poppy seed
filling. Last batch at Christmas I bought at new place. Not best recipe.
Dyed vicious cheery pink, flavored with coconut/milk? and lots of vanilla.
Just a little wierd. I'm thinking I'll have to learn to make my own too.
Edrena

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 03:01:48 GMT, The Joneses >
wrote:


>
>Y'all ever tried the sweet tamales? Flavored with sugar, egg, anise seed,
>raisins, pineapple or nuts sometimes, might be nice with a poppy seed
>filling. Last batch at Christmas I bought at new place. Not best recipe.
>Dyed vicious cheery pink, flavored with coconut/milk? and lots of vanilla.
>Just a little wierd. I'm thinking I'll have to learn to make my own too.
>Edrena
>
>

No I've never tried sweet tamales. Sounds good though. I'll search
around for a recipe with good reviews. If I'm going to put all the
time and effort into making them, I want them to come out good.
Thanks for the tip.


Rusty
Sacramento, CA

<tamale story and recipe snipped>
>
>http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/Tamale_Recipe.htm
>
<tamale story and recipe snipped>

Your story reminded me that I always wanted to make tamales but the
job seemed so overwhelming. I went to this site (tyvm) and read their
instructions, which were clear and precise. I'm putting tamales on my
short list of things I want to prepare. Thanks for the inspiration.

Ginny