6 Easy Steps to Little Grandma's Tamales Mexican Cooking Class

[Music] my welcome to country garden cuisine in st. Charles Illinois I'm chef Virginia Lopez today we're going to make tamales tamales are traditional in my family and I just want to tell you a little bit about the history of tamales they date back as far as 5000 to 8000 BC a couple of things you should know about tamales is it they can be savory or they can be sweet we eat them for breakfast lunch or dinner when we I always love a sweet tamale in the morning with a cup of coffee one of the first steps I like to do when I'm making tamales is get the corn husk ready you can buy them in pound packages one two or three pounds a pound of corn husk will make about 80 to 100 tamales you can see they're very dry we get a bowl of warm water we put the corn husk in there and then we want to weigh them down so they don't float to the top and then they don't get soft just put a little weight a plate or something on top pork tamale is one of the very traditional tamales and we always use a pork tamale for Christmas or any festival I have some pork butt here or you could use pork shoulder I like this one it has a lot of marbling that meat is going to be very tender inside the tamale and you want to really tender meat so I'm just going to cut it in a couple pieces you can also buy it like it's a roast they come in row sizes too we're going to cut it in a couple big pieces and then later we'll be cutting them up in a dice to fit inside the tamale we'll be putting them in my putting them in the water let's get this turned on okay the other thing we're going to use for the stack and we're making a stock because we are going to mix the dough with the stack so we want lots of flavor in the dough and that's going to come from the pork stack we've added our pork now we're going to add our onions and then we're going to add garlic just going to kind of smash that garlic a little bit we'll put that in there and we add a little bay leaf and a little sprinkle of salt we're going to be adding salt to the dough that wraps around the filling when we make the tamale but we are going to put a little bit in the stock just for flavor we're going to let that come to a boil then we're going to turn it down to a simmer and cook it for about an hour making tamales is a process we start out by cooking the pork making a stack because I need the stock to make the dough and I need the dough to put in the sauce so we're going to start out by making our gel we have a corn flour we call it masa or dough and you can get this at most grocery stores I think it's sold everywhere and then we're also going to use lard not shortening or oils so we're going to start out by using our mixer we're going to start out by putting our flour our corn flour in the mixer and then the next thing you can do with the lard I've already measured out the lard is we will either mix it up and whip it very light if you would like but the one thing like to do my grandfather used to do it this way he melted the lard no he seemed to easier way to me is just to melt the lard so we're going to put the lard in there and get that melting now I've already pre-measured my broth and the baking powder and the salt we're going to add the dry ingredients first the masa the teaspoon of salt the baking powder we're just going to mix these dry ingredients and then we're going to melt the lard and it's almost all melted we can turn off the flame I think we have that melted enough and we're just going to add this I'm going to turn this on slowly and we're going to add turn it up a little bit get all the lard blended with the masa okay and you can probably see this you can see inside the bowl okay the next thing we're going to add is our stock and you can I actually have the onions in here as well I'm going to mix them all together I like all that extra flavor whatever I had in my stack I'm just going to mix all of that okay I think it's done it's mixed we're going to just take this out of the bowl I always like to think of this as a peanut butter consistency something that will spread like peanut butter because we are going to be spreading this on the corn husk I'm going to scrape this out I put the masa in the bowl and covered it so that the masa won't get dry while I'm making the salsa and getting the meat ready then we're going to make our sauce that we're going to mix with our meat but we did need the masa because the masa also goes in the sauce we want the sauce to stay so it doesn't ooze out of the tamales the next step is to make the salsa this is going to be the Chile ancho salsa and I get the dried chilli ancho's at the grocery store we're going to use about 8 of those that we're going to put them in water as soon as this comes to a boil so I'm going to show you how to do that but I also want you to know that sometimes your skin might be sensitive to these things so we are going to put some gloves on to do this I've already prepared some and I'm just going to show you the process of doing this kitchen shears work really well I'm just going to cut a little piece off of that and we're going to open it up I just want you to see how to do this when I'm looking for chili on shows I like to get the chili on shows that feel pliable sometimes I go to the store the Mexican grocery stores and pick up a bag and they feel really crunchy I like it when they're more pliable as you can see seeds out we're going to take the stem off get that off and if there's a little bit of the little vein inside there get rid of that so we're going to put that in there we're going to do one more or you can cut it with a knife open this up again just cut that open and dump the seeds out get rid of the stem there we go the next thing we're going to do is put the nachos in the boiling water so we've started the pot I'm just going to put all of these into the boiling water about eight about eight of the big chili nachos will go into the boiling water get them all submerged once it comes to a boil we're going to let it boil for about ten or fifteen minutes we want the chilies to get really soft because we're going to blend them with all the other ingredients okay we've taken all the seeds out as you know a lot of peppers or maybe you don't know a lot of the heat is in the seeds so we pull those out and that's why we wear the gloves too we're going to get these softened up and mix them with all the other ingredients we have our cumin you can get the cumin from a lot of Mexican grocery stores in a bag or go to your regular grocery store and it comes in a jar we have some sugar salt I have garlic and tomato we're going to mix these all together we now have the dried chilies they're all very soft as you can see and we need a cup and a half and I want you to pack it in there just really pack it down into the measuring cup [Music] and as I told you I use the 8 Peppers and you can see it fills just about right a cup and a half we're going to put in our tomato our cumin seed and take these off now that I'm not touching the peppers clove of garlic salt and then I need a half a cup of our masa the masa mellows the flavor of the hot peppers just put a half a cup of masa together now we're going to blend all of the ingredients to create a smooth consistency I'm going to add the sugar after I blend it I want to taste it and I'm going to add a little sugar at a time until I think it tastes right we're going to start mixing okay let's check that you can see the texture it's a nice thick texture we do want that once we mix it with the meat we don't want it to be drippy okay we're going to put a little of our sugar in just to make it taste a little more mild not so acidic [Music] let's try that again put a little more sugar I think we need a little bit more okay let's taste that one more time that's perfect what the sugar did is it mellow down the flavor and the sharpness and the heat of the peppers so it has a much more mellow but flavorful taste we'll be mixing this with our meat now that we have the stock done we're going to take the meat out and we're going to cube it cut it in small little cubes this is going to be the pork filling and I just cut it in little cubes when it's this soft it sometimes shreds a little bit we have all decided in my family that we like it when it's chopped up my mother has at times shredded the meat and we just like it more in chunks so you just chunk this up fairly small because we are going to fill these tamales so we're just going to put a few pieces in there we'll get this all cut up and I did leave the bone in the pot because bone always gives stock flavor okay we're going to get all our other ingredients together and we're going to mix them all together for the pork filling we'll get the salsa that we just made we have nice cubes here get all these things together now that we have the meat all diced all cubed up with a bigger bowl so we can mix this and we're going to get our sauce that we've already made and just mix this up now what I'm looking for is to make sure all of the meat is completely coated with the sauce with the chili nacho salsa and you can see it's not runny at all right there and this one is all ready to go now we just have to get our corn house and we'll start making some tamales well we're getting close to being done here we're going to take the corn husks that are very soft and you take all these you stand them up in a bowl so we're going to get a lot of these standing up in the bowl so that all the water drips off get them all ready there's a few things you need to know about corn husk there's an inside and an outside to the corn husk as we all know we want to spread the dough on the inside that has a smooth texture and when you're looking at it you'll be able to see the texture is very smooth where the outside has all the bumps and very rough you need to spread the dough on the inside if you spread it on the wrong side it's not going to peel off all the masa is going to stick to the corn husk so you want to watch for that you'll be able to feel it this is really rough textured and this has a smoother waxy look to it all right we're going to assemble again I'm looking for my smooth side and it seems like this is the site right here there's several ways you can do what we have experimented with many ways you get about a tablespoon a round tablespoon of the dough and we used to do this we'd be spreading it on like you're trying to put peanut butter on bread and it worked okay but after a while I learned a new method a friend of mine who lives in Mexico she showed me with the banana leaves they used to put one banana leaf on top of the other and spread it out that way so then I started doing it with saran wrap so I have the dough on there and I would just take this and I just start spreading it out this way and it just worked out better for me to do it that way I found it easier I think we're going to put a little bit more this is a little bit larger I'll just show you a couple different sizes I'm just going to spread this all out I want to bring it down to the end close to the end just leaving a little bit space and I only want it to be halfway up and I'll show you why when we start assembling them I'm going to get oh just about a tablespoon or so I've got my and put that right in the center you just a touch more meat it'll go right in the center and then I'm going to take the dough the masa bring it over this side and then bring this over just roll it up and then this part the reason I didn't put it all the way up is because I want to bend that and then that's done so we're going to make a couple of these I'm going to show you a few things sometimes if you end up with just really small pieces and again looking for the waxy side you can get a couple small pieces if you're getting low and put them together we'll do that one okay and again spread this out smooth it all out it's like playing with your food now we're going to get a little bit more of the meat put it down the center bring one side over and the other side and then bend it in half and those pieces are staying together as you can see well lay it on the folded side sometimes when you get a corn husk that's really way too big this is a little bit big just take a end and just tear some of that off we're going to do this one more time for you get a nice big round spoonful put that in the center just spread this out again smooth it out and then we're going to get more of the filling something we haven't talked about is all the different fillings you can put into a tamale and making the traditional pork one of my other favorite is a roasted pepper and a melting cheese like a mozzarella cheese we we have a chihuahua cheese that the Mexican store melts so we do some other fillings I also do some with sweet i sweetened the dough and I add sweet fillings but these are our traditional pork I'm going to show you how to assemble them in the pot so that we can steam them [Music] okay I want to show you a couple techniques that some people use I don't always do this because it's a little more time but they take the little pieces that we peel off the edges of ones that are large and tie these up so that they don't come apart just tie that one up sometimes when my mom and I would be doing this we would do this if we were making several kinds of tamales and you don't know what kind they are a lot when they're all in the pot together so we would say okay the ones we make with the peppers and the cheese we're going to tie something around it so we know the difference of the different tamales so let's talk about how you cook a tamale we steam a tamale and you can find these big steamer pots and many of the Mexican grocery stores and you can probably use a big seafood steamer as well my mother used to use a big seafood steamer but these are relatively inexpensive we put the water on the bottom and you can see there's a little groove here and this is so the steamer section go right on top of that groove I have water in this pan just a little below the groove so the water is going to boil and it's going to create steam inside the first thing that we do after we have the water in we've put the insert in is we're going to put some of the corn husks just lay them down in the bottom just in case some of the water bubbles a little bit too much we don't want it to just come up on the tamales so we're going to just put this all in here now I want you to see how we place these I place them with the open side inside this pot the back side that we bent on the edge of the pot place it in there and we're going to just put them in in a circle you can see how they're all going around now I know you're probably thinking I do not have a pot like that I don't know if I want to buy one because I may not do this all the time I'll show you a couple other ways you can do this and steam your tamales and some of the equipment you probably have at home if you're just going to make a small batch this is a small batch we usually make oh gosh dozens and dozens of these things at the holiday time when I get together with the cousins we get together we talk about things going on in the family and it's just a lovely time to get together with family now you can see we have these all in there we're going to put it on the burner and we're going to bring this up to a boil and then just turn it down to a simmer you'll hear it boil what my grandfather used to do I don't do it too much but he used to put a penny inside and when you could really hear that penny moving around you know the water is boiling so grandpa would do that you can also put this on if you would like and get the water boiling before you put the tamales in it's a little hot little steamy but you can place those in there now the next thing we're going to do is place tamale leaves on top or you could get a wet dish towel lay it on top what this is doing is it's kind of holding that steam down into the pot and it keeps it really close to the tamale so I'm just going to put a layer of these right on top or if you would like you ran out of these you can also lay a wet dish towel on top that's all covered we're going to cover this up we're going to steam it for about 45 it's to an hour it all depends on how many you have and they're obviously the more layers of tamales you have in there it's going to take a little longer to cook but once they're done I will also show you how you can tell when they're done well we're all done that was a process wasn't it that's why you invite your friends and your family to come over and everybody does a little step and you get them done and they spread the dough on the corn husk and you're done a lot quicker so after about 45 minutes check them take that lid off we'll get one of these out and the way that you can tell if they're done is will the corn husk peel off of the dough so we're going to unwrap it and you can see it is most definitely peeling off the corn husk doesn't that look yummy we'll get these all out to cool just a little bit we don't want it to cool too much we want to eat them while they're still hot I mean there are hot tamales right okay let's take a look at this one that we've already unwrapped there we go let's try this mmm really good the masa very tender lots of flavor from the stock our sauce very nice the sauce with the mellowness of the masa wonderful flavor and do keep in mind if you want to do others there's other variations just let your imagination run wild whatever you think after you taste this what would be really great inside there you can add that I do roasted peppers and chicken with Chipotle some people do just something simple like pinto beans and some cheese so just think of this as a sandwich just mix it up and put different things in it and enjoy have a nice holiday bye [Music]

Channel: Dave Hudson

Views: 1,057,730

Keywords: tamales, mexican, food, cooking, recipes, videos, how to make tamales, easy tamale video, easy cooking ideas, easy mexican cooking ideas

Id: qSyW6JwwDYw

Length: 30min 59sec (1859 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 22 2011