Hot Tamales Like Ya Mama Makes Recipes

REAL HOMEMADE TAMALES

Steps:

• Place pork into a Dutch oven with onion and garlic, and add water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until the meat is cooked through, about 2 hours.
• Use rubber gloves to remove stems and seeds from the chile pods. Place chiles in a saucepan with 2 cups of water. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, then remove from heat to cool. Transfer the chiles and water to a blender and blend until smooth. Strain the mixture, stir in salt, and set aside. Shred the cooked meat and mix in one cup of the chile sauce.
• Soak the corn husks in a bowl of warm water. In a large bowl, beat the lard with a tablespoon of the broth until fluffy. Combine the masa harina, baking powder and salt; stir into the lard mixture, adding more broth as necessary to form a spongy dough.
• Spread the dough out over the corn husks to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness. Place one tablespoon of the meat filling into the center. Fold the sides of the husks in toward the center and place in a steamer. Steam for 1 hour.
• Remove tamales from husks and drizzle remaining chile sauce over. Top with sour cream. For a creamy sauce, mix sour cream into the chile sauce.

HOT TAMALES (LOUISIANA STYLE)

Steps:

• Run onions, celery, garlic, and bell pepper through your food processor until they are finely minced.
• In a very large bowl, combine ground meat, minced veggies, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and salt. Mix together thoroughly using your hands. Add in the rotel, 1 cup of corn meal, and 1 can of tomato sauce; mix again. (You need to mix the wet ingredients in separately from the spices so that the spices don't all clump together in one spot.)
• Lay out your papers beside two baking sheets or trays. Add 1 cup of cornmeal to one baking sheet, to roll the tamales in (the other one is to stack completed tamales on.)
• Pinch off some of the meat mixture, and form into a ping pong sized ball. Roll it in the cornmeal, coating it as thick as you can. Place in the center of a tamale paper on one side, and roll. The ball should squish into a log, leaving an inch of the wrapper empty on either end. Press down the top of both empty ends, and fold the two sides of the ends in before folding them under the tamale.
• Repeat with the remainder of the meat mixture. After a few, you get the feel of how much meat it will take to fill the wrapper up enough. We got 75 tamales out of one batch, it depends on how big you make them.
• In a large dutch oven, pour in the 1/2 cup oil and 1 can tomato sauce. Cover with a layer of tamales, then a can of sauce, and a sprinkle of chili powder, repeating until you run out of tamales. Fill the pan with water until the tamales are just covered.
• Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer 2 - 2 1/2 hours till done, adding water if necessary.

HOT TAMALES LIKE YA MAMA MAKES

Steps:

• Place the tamale papers into a shallow baking pan and soak them in just enough water to keep them wet.
• Place the ground beef in a large mixing bowl.
• With a food processor, puree the onions, garlic and Rotel tomatoes with juice. Pour this puree over the ground beef along with the red pepper, black pepper, salt, cornmeal, chili powder and tomato sauce. With your hands work this together until the meat mixture is uniformly and thoroughly blended. Your hands may become stained from the chili powder. Set aside at room temperature for about 30 minutes so that the seasonings can marry. In the meantime, mix cornmeal coating and tamale sauce.
• Cornmeal Coating:.
• In a shallow baking pan, blend together the cornmeal, salt, red pepper and chili powder until thoroughy mixed; set aside.
• Tamale Sauce:.
• In a small bowl combine tomato sauce and chili powder, stirring well; set aside.
• The Work Station:.
• Place a large sheet of aluminum foil on a work surface. This is what you're going to roll the tamales on to keep things tidy. Put within reach the meat mixture, cornmeal coating, tamale papers and the loaf pans.
• Begin Rolling:.
• Using about one (1) tablespoon of the meat mixture, take your hands and roll out an oblong tamale about the size of a Vienna Sausage and toss it around in the cornmeal mixture. It's not necessary to pack the cornmeal on; just a light coating.
• Remove tamale from the cornmeal and wrap it in one of the wet tamale papers. It's best to wrap them from point to point diagonally, tucking in the edges of the paper as you wrap.
• As you finish each one, place it into the aluminum loaf pan. There should be three layers of tamales with 10 tamales on each layer, fitting into the pans perfectly with criss-crossed layers so the tamales cook evenly.
• When all the pans are loaded, pour the sauce evenly over the tamales and fill each loaf pan with "boiling" water. Tightly cover each pan with aluminum foil and place them into an retangular roaster. Finally, fill the roaster with just enough water to come about 3/4 up the sides of the pans. Do Not Overfill.
• Place the roaster on the stovetop, cover it tightly and simmer the tamales for about 2 hours.
• Tips for freezing:.
• If doubling the recipe for freezing, roll and wrap, placing them into loaf pans, ladle on the sauce, cover with heavy-duty aluminum foil and freeze uncooked. Or, for fully cooked tamales, cool, cover tightly with aluminum foil and freeze; defrost in refrigerator.

TAMALES

Steps:

• Combine all ingredients with water and cook until meat is done. Strain meat and set aside. Reserve liquid for later use.
• Combine all ingredients and mix well. Grind in grinder and add to meal mixture. Add 1 gallon of reserved liquid from meat mixture. Mix well. Let meat and meal mixtures cool overnight in refrigerator.
• Combine ingredients in a large pot and put over high heat. While boil mixture is heating, spread meal mixture in tamale wrapper. Add meat mixture to center. Roll tamales. Either corn shucks or tamale papers may be used. Prepare according to package instructions. Place tamales in large pot. Pour boil mixture over tamales and cook for 3 hours. Remove from heat and set aside for 30 minutes. Add more water to cover. Cook for 1 additional hour.