Grandma's Homemade Tamales Part 2: the masa & assembly.mov

okay here we are day two because it takes so long to do these we like to do it in a two-day process we do the meat and the chili the first day and then we assemble the tamales make the Masa and assemble the tamales the next day so here we are day two I'm wearing my Oregon Duck t-shirt because my son goes to the University of Oregon go Ducks and and she's wearing her UCLA because her my cousin our cousin goes there she's a softball player at UCLA so go Jazz go Bruins so anyway day two we're going to start with the tamale I mean we're going to sorry we're going to start with the um Masa and then we'll show you how to assemble so this this in my opinion I don't know about yours but my opinion probably matters the most so in my opinion this is the hardest part and so you want to pay attention because the cons consistency of the MAA has to be just right and there's really perfect and there's really a special way to assemble them so that they don't fall apart and run all over the pot so anyway get ready this is kind of messy too but it's fun here we go go tucks go Bo okay now we're going to assemble the Masa um this is what I buy it's Masa um there's a few Brands out there they all pretty much do the same thing um they all have instructions on the back to make your Masa um I pretty much follow those instructions but I like to add my own twist to my own Masa because Masa is very important to the Tamala you don't want it to be too bland so again you're going to follow the instructions that are on the back of the packaging and you can modify the amount of lard that you put in there um cuz I use about half of what it asked for um that's about six cups of Masa that I put in there and then I add my dry ingredients first so I would say about two Palm fulls of the parsley I would say that's probably about a teaspoon and a half of garlic powder salt to taste you want to be careful with your salt you don't want to add too much salt because the worst thing is a salty tamale the baking powder is for volume um this is about I would say about a tablespoon and a half of baking powder we're going to add about a cup of the um Tomo salsa that we made I like to melt the lard just for consistency it's just easier to kind of pour everything in at the same time so this I'm going to do about 3/4 of a cup and so the consistency that you're looking for when you make your tamales is it cannot be too thick it has to be as my mother would say like butter it has soft like butter it has to when you put it on the the husk it has to just spread evenly and not lumpy not clumpy it's just smooth like butter if you're doing six cups of Masa I would say you're going to at least put um 8 cups of water but I just do it as I go along so as you can see that's pretty thick so I'm going to stop it for a second and get some more water okay so now I'm just going to turn it up a bit if you have a KitchenAid mixer it's easier to do it this way or else your arm is going to get sore you can see it's starting to fluff up that's from the baking powder that's the consistency that I like when it starts to get fluffy okay so this is the consistency that I'm looking for I like to see how it falls off the paddle so we want to put these in the water make sure you go through them and clean them because a lot of times they'll have the fibers from the corn and you don't want to put that in your tamale um sometimes they might be a little dirty these should soak for at least a half an hour um just so they're soft soft enough to be pliable I'll give them one last rinse individually make sure that there's no fibers on there and then I'll just set them here when I'm done separating all my husk I will squeeze them out try and get all as much water out as possible or you can dry them out so the front side and then the back side so that way it's easier to put the Masa on it's not going to slip now that we have our ohas cleaned and dried um and we have our ingredients ready for the tamale that we're making which right now is going to be our cheese spinach with uh green chili um I'm ready to show you how to assemble okay so your o has have two sides this is the smooth side and the rigid side it has more ridges on it um you're going to want to apply your Masa to the smooth side of your tamale so you can use a paddle you can use um any kind of spatula that you want whatever is easiest for you to use and apply liberally because you're going to be spreading it out so I like to apply and I push down because I don't like to use too much Masa on my tamales so you keep just spreading it around until your um OHA is covered um about 3/4 of the way up and then once your Masa is on there um if you're going to do the cheese and spinach I like to put my spinach first and I like to be pretty liberal with my spinach then this particular cheese is cheddar and Monterey Jack you can use any kind of cheese like a pepper jack um and if it's you're going to buy it shredded any I I prefer finely shredded it melts it seems to melt better and just about a handful on there then you take your Doo salsa that you made earlier and just put that on there and then we're just going to wrap it and twist then when you get to the back part just going to fold it down like that and bring the rest of it up so this is what it's going to look like and then I like to wrap my tamali in wax paper just cuz they have a nice nice presentation um and then the cheese if it oozes out it's not going to get everywhere all over your pot so from the bottom up from the top down and then we just fold it over you can lay them in a dish standing up or sitting down um but you always want to make sure which direction is the top which direction is the bottom because you don't want it to spill over you don't want to put your tamale upside down in the pot cuz that would not be good I'm going to show you some things to use to cook your tamali you could use a regular stock pot like this at the bottom of your stock pot you can use a vegetable steamer um and just expand it so it'll expand to the size of the pot you want to make sure that there is enough water to cover just the top part you don't want it to come over over cuz then that will go into your tamale and will make the bottom of your tamale tasteless so just to here you could also use a pressure cooker and in the pressure cooker it has a steam basket and same thing you just want to make sure that the water is filled to the very bottom of this which is about this much water you want to start it out on high soon as the water starts boiling in and bubbling you want to turn it all the way down to a simmer for about 2 and 1/2 hours do not overcrowd your tamali cuz 2 and 1/2 hours could turn into 4 hours and it just takes too long 2 and 1/2 hours as long as it should take you to cook your tamali your cheese tamali might take um a little bit less time but you'll want to check those as you go at an hour and a half and then at 2 hours for those it shouldn't be more than 2 hours okay okay so this is the pressure cooker and I fit about a little over a dozen in here pretty comfortably you want to make sure that there's room between your tamali so that the steam circulates evenly you don't want to overcrowd CU then it'll take too long to cook okay now that you're done making your tamali and wrapping them you can store them in a 1gallon ziplock bag and you can label them with the type of tamale that you made or the person's name ever you want to label them is up to you and then if you're not going to cook them right away you can freeze them um they freeze beautifully just like this you just take them out the day before you're going to make your tamali um so they can thaw and just put them in the stock pot or put them in the pressure cooker and cook your tamales for either 2 and 1/2 hours in a regular stock pot or 2 hours in the Press pressure cooker okay so now our tamali are done and we're just going to take them out of the wrapper so you can see what they look like these are the the cheese and spinach tamali this is the the cheese and the spinach tamale with the green chili inside and it's delicious Margaret's about to eat the whole thing right now cuz she couldn't wait to taste this so enjoy okay so that's how we make tamali for you other Mexicans out there who make tamal's your way we're happy for you um just don't send me any comments and and tell me I'm doing it wrong this is how we make it and we love it you can make a couple of dozen and have them that night for dinner or you can do it like we do and have a tamale making party and send out I usually send out the recipe ahead of time and people will make their filling at home and then we will uh make the assembly line here and do it all together and it goes a lot faster the more people you have the quicker it goes so anyway have a great time making your tamali we've gave you three different recipes um those are our favorite uh there's plenty online to make other fillings so have at it and have a great time oh and

Channel: C. Margaret Steele

Views: 320,411

Keywords: Tamales, homemade tamales, mexican tamales, authentic tamales, cheese and spinach tamales, how to make tamales, masa, tamale masa, tamale assembly, assembling tamales

Id: YPcU9pzIj8s

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 05 2012