Learn to Make Tamales with Red Chicken Chile Filling & Chorizo and Potato Tacos

[Music] today on America's Test Kitchen Julia and Bridget unlock the secrets to foolproof tamales with red chicken chili and Dan makes Julia the ultimate chorizo and potato tacos it's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen [Music] if you're lucky enough to live near a tortilla factory or maybe a lot market you might find this this is coarse ground masa harina and it's great for making tamales but more likely you're gonna find a finer type at the supermarket and that's used for making tortillas but Julia is here and we're gonna show you how to make tamales with a great texture and flavor no matter where you live mm mm mm I love tamales Thank You turtle and now if you notice again on this bag they show there are two kind of casings for tamale there's this green husk or fresh husk and the dried husk now the green husk comes with an ear of corn inside and really they can be hard to find so we prefer to use the dried husk and this is what it looks like if you buy it at the store or online get a nice big bag it can last you a long time now if you use a dried husk you need to rehydrate it first so here I have 20 husks now we're only making 18 tamales but always include a few extra just for safety you just want to pour some boiling water right over the husks inevitably some of them are going to rip which is why we're making it it's true so we're gonna let these sit for about 30 minutes and of course I'm gonna weigh them down with a nice plate whoo that's hot to help keep them submerged okay all right I'm gonna put this out of the way back here and now we're gonna get to the best part the filling right that little nugget of flavor inside the tamale and today we're making a chicken and chili filling we're gonna use two kinds of chilies here here we have an ancho which is a dried poblano and a New Mexican chili which is a dried version of a slightly spicier chili kind of related to the Anaheim and now when you prep these all I'm gonna do is take off the stems and shake out all the seeds and then we're just gonna tear these into half-inch pieces and as we tear we might find a few seeds stuck in there we can pull them out as we need to and the seeds are okay in terms of flavor but they don't break down so they make a little texture in the sauce that we don't quite want we want a nice smooth sauce now you want one cup of both of these chilies and the thing to do before you start cooking is to toast them you're gonna toast them over a medium heat then add them right to the dry pan and it can take anywhere from two to six minutes depending on how many chilies you have in the skillet and how they are smell so good but this is a job where you don't want to walk away because these chilies can go from fresh and pliable and fragrant to burnt to a crisp in two seconds through quartz flavor will ruin everything all right oh you can really smell those smells so good you've really time to take him off the heat I'm just gonna put them in this bowl for now back on the heat we're gonna add three tablespoons of vegetable oil we're gonna give this a minute so the oil can start to shimmer which won't take long because the pan is still pretty hot and now we're gonna add an onion we're gonna let this cook until it starts to soften and that takes about five minutes or so all right you can see these onions have softened and starting to get a little brown on the edges so we're gonna add six cloves of minced garlic an important flavor in this filling we often add a little cumin three-quarters of a teaspoon of cumin three-quarters of a teaspoon of oregano and that was dried oregano and half a teaspoon salt we're also gonna add our dried chiles back at this point oh now this is kind of the basis for a lot of Mexican sauces where you saute aromatics and you stir in toasted dried chilies and depending on the chilies you use or the aromatics you use you can get different flavors that garlic you can start to smell it it only needs about 30 seconds or so and now we're gonna stir in some broth this is three cups of chicken broth so we're just gonna bring this up to a simmer reduce the heat down a little bit and let it cook gently for about ten minutes until it's slightly thickened ah-ha what a difference 10 minutes makes huh so fragrant mints actually reduced yeah and so all the chilies are nicely softened so it's gonna puree into a nice fine sauce and I often make a mess in my own kitchen trying to shove everything from the skillet into the blender all at once so over time I've learned to use a spoon we're just gonna puree this until smooth and that depending on the blender take anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute all right let's take a look here Oh looks good and smooth back into the skillet this pureed sauce goes oh it's so good isn't that amazing and now we're gonna put this back over medium heat and now we're gonna add to the chicken because this is chicken filling about that yeah we're gonna poach the chicken right in the sauce so here I have one and a quarter pounds of chicken thighs and chicken thighs really just work better than breasts here because the dark meat really responds well to braising it stays nice and juicy it's great that you're using boneless skinless thighs too because you don't have to worry about taking out the bones or all the fat that comes from the skin that's right so a little bit of salt and pepper on both sides right into the sauce and of course they're gonna release a little liquid into the sauce it'll loosen the sauce up a bit as they cook and this is one of those situations where the sauce is kind of flavored the chicken and the chicken is gonna flavor the sauce so it's a win-win it is a win-win all right so we're gonna bring this back to a simmer or and once it's at a simmer lower the heat put the lid on and cook it for about 25 minutes until the chicken registers about 160 degrees while that's simmering away let's talk about the masa which we know is gonna be controversial because you mentioned at the beginning real tamales use masa for tamales which is a little bit thicker than masa harina and it can be very hard to find so we're gonna substitute and it's a little controversial thank you so good we're gonna use 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of masa harina 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of grits in here I have quick grits not instant all right so this is boiling water I'm just gonna measure out one and a half cups because they have the different grinds this is so much bigger than masa harina you need to give the grits a head start with the hot water so it softens we're just gonna whisk this in make sure there's no clumps of grits stuck at the bottom all right so the grits have been soaking for ten minutes and it's time to add the masa harina that's a cup and 2 tablespoons we're just gonna stir this right in don't need to add any extra moisture and you can see it's starting to form that nice workable dough I'm just stirring it to make sure there's no dried pockets of masa harina anywhere that looks pretty good at this point we're gonna cover it we're just gonna set this aside for about 20 minutes all right now time to take a look at our filling this has been simmering away for a little less than half an hour looks okay isn't it and the chicken is nicely cooked through these little pieces cook through in no time so now I'm gonna turn off the heat I'm gonna take the chicken out I'm gonna let it cool for just a little bit before we shred it up and this sauce left in the skillet now some of it we're gonna use to help flavor the chicken filling and there student we're gonna serve with the tamales cuz that's just too much flavor to lose we are gonna season it though we're gonna add just a little bit of vinegar this is a tablespoon and a half of cider vinegar just brightens up everything a little bit then I just want to give it a quick taste sometimes it needs a little salt pepper even a little sugar to really bring out all the flavors and that really depends on the bitterness of the chiles that you sometimes they're run a little bit on the sweet side but sometimes they can be a little bit bitter yeah so I'm gonna add a little bit of salt and just a little bit of sugar to help balance the bitterness of these chilies alright I'm gonna give that one more little taste make sure I got it just right uh-huh yeah it's gonna be half gone by the time you finished seasoning and what's perfect all right now I'm gonna measure out a cup of it and that's gonna go in with the chicken filling the rest of this sauce I'm just gonna set aside I'll put the lid on that way it doesn't evaporate we're gonna see that again when we serve okay all right so now time to shred lit chicken easiest done with two forks you can see this chickens just gonna pull apart you don't get a lot of filling inside of a tamale it's really just a generous tablespoon or so and so you want these pieces of chicken to be very small so I'm really gonna take my time and shred it up into tiny pieces and this is another reason that you didn't want to use chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs you would never be able to shred it like that this is so tender it just falls apart with the two fours alright I took my time here shredded it really finely now we're gonna put it in a bowl toss it with some of the sauce using a bench scraper it makes it really easy here to get all this lovely shredded chicken right off the board in goes the cup of reserved sauce this is the stuff right here alright that looks pretty good now we're gonna want to chill this before we make the tamale so I'm just gonna cover it for a little plastic wrap and put it in the frigerator until we're ready to make tamales sounds good our filling is chilled our corn husks are soaked this is been nice and rested this is the masa harina and the grits together it's time to make tamales so for the rest of the filling I'm gonna take this mixture of grits and masa harina and we're gonna finish it in the food processor a lot of recipes just use this mixture and didn't add any fresh corn but the ones that added fresh corn tasted good you could really taste the corn flavor because it's corn there's corn in it alright so we're gonna add frozen corn that we've thought and it's one and a half cups most tamales are just made with lard when you can find good lard it has real flavor most of the stuff you find at the supermarket these days doesn't have a lot of flavor so what we found is you want to use part lard part butter so this is six tablespoons of lard six tablespoons of butter and of course the Lord and the butter have been softened now we're gonna have a little bit of sugar just a tablespoon of sugar now this ingredient is quite unusual this is two and a quarter teaspoons of baking powder and it's gonna do exactly what you think it's gonna when the heat hits it bubble up and make a really light tamale so you won't get those lead sinkers this is crucial last but not least little salt 3/4 of a teaspoon and now we're just gonna process this for about a minute till it's nice and smooth stopping to scrape down every so often anything all right let's take a look oh that looks perfect everything's pretty much processed up you don't see any big pieces of corn it is tamale making time all right I'm gonna start us off easy with two really nice big corn husks here all right and each tamales gonna get about a quarter cup of the masa mixture now if you make tamales a lot investing in one of these scoops is gonna save you a lot of headache I'm gonna put the tamale mixture on so this is about a quarter cup of that masa dough and now we're gonna spread it out into a nice thin layer leave about at least a finger width okay at the very end because there's that baking powder in there and as they cook its gonna shoot out the top you want to go right to the edge all right just about a 4-inch square using these little spatulas is great spraying them with a little bit of vegetable oil spray helps prevent that sticky dough from getting all over this and this is where the patience comes in really these are special occasions for to think you know it's true these are made often for Christmas and you bring in the whole family and you do it instance julienne our family that's why we're doing it together how's this a little bit bigger that's perfect all right so now we're gonna add our chilled filling we're gonna use a scant two tablespoons you want to put it right down the middle hmm all right and this is where you really want to avoid the temptation to overfill tamale it's true packing as much of that as possible it's true and I'm an overfill er I mean i overfill my tacos and burritos all the time so this you got to show a little restraint so this masa is pretty sticky you want to encase the filling in the masa so we're gonna touch this edge to this far edge so that it's fully encased so if a little of the filling leaks out that smile but if it really goes all over the place no shame in taking a little more masa filling and patching it up all right so now you're just gonna roll it up tightly keep rolling keep rolling and then you can see where the husk ends on that seam I'm just gonna fold them and there we have a tamale now some people wrap these dealt keep them closed okay we'd found that really wasn't necessary as long as you cook them with the seam side now they don't unravel and place them seam side down right on the platter you're a natural all right well I say you are one fine tamale maker you can come over to my house any time I'm gonna eat half of them deal so now it's time to cook them and when you cook tamales you actually steam them in a steamer basket and half of the trick of steaming them is getting them into the basket without tipping over because you want them to stand up so the filling stays inside so the first few are always the trickiest you want to put that fold where the seam is to the outside of the pan all right it's a little bit of a puzzle once you get the first few in there then they hold each other a lot easier mmm two more to snuggle in here there we go oh right so these tamales have a long cooking time they're gonna steam for about an hour and of course we have water in the bottom of that pot you want to check that water every 15 minutes or so to make sure it hasn't boiled away okay all right these tamales have been cooking for an hour time to take a peek so the cooking time is always a good indication if the tamales are done but another way to tell is to take a look at the tamale dough itself it should be able to pull right away from the husk very easily not sticking any more to the husk that's right and that's how you know it's done all right so those are fully cooked put these on a nice big platter I am very impressed because at home and I make tamales I always have one sacrificial tomalak just doesn't want to hang together it blows up in the pot well we just scoop it out and eat it anyway yeah I happen to the best of us but really tamales is all about taking your time when you fold them so that the tamale filling is really full encased in all that masa all right so tamales our serves there's a tamale for you you can see why they make him for Christmas because it's a little gift oh and a little sauce yes and by a little please a lot and you can see that light masa dough it just breaks apart it's not like a lead sinker at all mm-hmm taste corn you taste chiles and then a little bit of chicken I mean it's magical it really is I think a lot of people buy their tamales from the freezer section and they get used to that very dense texture that has almost no flavor and you forget a real tamale it's supposed to taste like corn especially taste like corn it's supposed to be pretty light - now the lucky thing about these if you didn't want to serve them all at once you could actually let these cool wrap them and freeze them for up to three months now our recipe for foolproof tamales starts by soaking corn husks make a sauce with toasted dried chilies spices and broth and chicken thighs right in that sauce use both grits and masa harina to make a coarse dough process with fresh corn and get a friend to help assemble the tamales steamed until cooked through and serve with more sauce from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen tamales with red chili chicken filling good Mexican tacos are no longer only available to those living in the southwest these days folks all over the country enjoy authentic tacos filled with carnitas carne asada or al pastor and today we're going to introduce you to another traditional taco tacos de chorizo con Papa or chorizo and potato tacos now Julia you might be thinking it's a bit of a weird company yeah I never heard of it before potatoes and chorizo but the beauty of these tacos is the chorizo releases all that beautiful red meat eat chili infused oil and then the potatoes soak it right off so you get old beautiful cohesive filling so that's what we're gonna start with is the potatoes this is a pound of Yukon Gold potatoes that we peeled and cut into half-inch pieces you cons are really important for this recipe because we want them to be nice and creamy and tender but we don't want them to fall apart into mashed potatoes I have four cups of water that I brought to a boil here in a 12-inch nonstick skillet I'm gonna add in my potatoes and a teaspoon of salt it's gonna stir that now this is somewhat of an unusual vessel for boiling potatoes it is so we're actually gonna use the skillet for the entire cooking process once this comes up to a simmer I'm gonna cover reduce the heat to medium we're gonna cook just for three to five minutes we want them to be just barely tender because we're gonna finish cooking them later it's been five minutes so let's check our potatoes and as I said we're looking for just tender and that's beautiful with a paring knife goes right through I turn off the heat and we're gonna drain them and you have a clean skillet now no nice I'm just gonna wipe it out we've dealt with the potatoes a little bit now we're gonna focus in on the chorizo some people can find really good mexican chorizo in their local area dogs lucky dogs a lot of people can't and it varies a lot brand to brand so we wanted to make a trio that you can just dial in exactly the flavor that we want start with three tablespoons of vegetable oil and they're gonna add a lot of different spices really make a very complex sausage so we're starting with a tablespoon of ancho chili powder I also have a tablespoon of paprika one and a half teaspoons of dried oregano I don't have teaspoons of ground coriander that nice lemony finish I also got 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt half a teaspoon of ground black pepper 1/4 of a teaspoon of cinnamon chad's nice warmth to it I've got a pinch of allspice and a pinch of cayenne so a little bit of real heat at the end so a lot of spices but they're all pretty pantry friendly for making sure yourself totally and we wanted this to be really approachable you know what to get whole Chili's and grind them out that kind of thing if we were to take all these spices and mix them right into the pork we'd end up with something that's pretty pasty so what we're doing here is blooming them in some oil just gonna help with flavor it's also gonna get rid of that dustiness so I'll bring this up over medium heat I must stir it to combine and you can already smell that you really can nice so we're just looking for it to start to bubble like that that means that it's nice and hot we can smell all those good aromatics in there well then smell changed a little bit at the beginning it smelled a little raw now it's a little deeper of a flavor a little toasty smelling beautiful color - I love that ok so now I'm gonna remove it from the heat can pull it back here turn off the heat and then we've got a few more ingredients to add I have 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar there's some nice tang one and a half teaspoons of sugar and 1 garlic club that we minced we are almost ready for our pork but we're gonna let this cool for about 5 minutes before we get it in now that this is cooled down we can add our pork side eight ounces of ground pork here we found that ground pork was perfect for this small amount and before I put it back on the heat I'm gonna mix it in with this spice paste get it really well incorporated this is a very clever way to make a small amount of good chorizo I like this I'm gonna put this over medium-high heat now this is where it gets good this is where we start cooking yes and we get all that nice fat rendering out of the pork it's gonna smell great I don't have to tell you but this is looking good well it smells really good and so we've rendered out a bunch of good juices and that's what our potatoes are going to suck up gonna be great so I'm gonna grab the potatoes now but I'm right to the skillet and just stir to combine we've got that combined I'm gonna turn the heat down to low and I'm gonna grab this lid here so we're gonna cook these for about six to eight minutes until the potatoes are totally tender while our potatoes are getting nice and tender over there we're gonna work on one of my favorite sauces of all time it's guacamole Tech Harrow and it's that green sauce you see at taco stands and at restaurants and it's super simple to put together so we're gonna start with tomatillos and they're really interesting they're related to Tomatoes they're in the nightshade family but they're not actual tomatoes they're really bright and acidic and they're great in salsa so gonna add a lot of acidity to this they have a little husk on the outside that you got to take off but then they're a little bit sticky underneath yeah so you got to give me a quick rinse so I'm gonna cut it into 1-inch pieces we're gonna let our food processor do most of the work for this we're gonna add an unusual ingredient for salsa that's gonna make this really nice and creamy and it's an avocado interesting so nice it ripe avocado and be careful when cutting your avocados it's one of the number one things people cut themselves on it's true so I'm gonna show you a way that I like to do it where you you can't really hurt yourself all right so I'm just gonna take this out and I use like the side of a sink to pop it off and then instead of holding it and cutting it in my hand what I'm gonna do is actually cut this in half lengthwise on both sides here and then once you do that it's very easy to peel off the skin okay and I'm gonna cut this into 1-inch pieces as well oh this is nice and ripe it's gonna be nice and creamy we're gonna go into the food processor I've got my avocado we got 8 ounces of tomatillos I've got a jalapeno here and I basically just cut all the exterior off so I left the ribs and the seeds inside so it's not gonna be too spicy but tons of good flavor a quarter of a cup of chopped cilantro leaves and stems the stems have a ton of flavor in there so we include them tablespoon of lime juice one minced garlic clove this is gonna be raw so you don't want to use a ton of garlic and finally 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt this is super simple we're gonna process it for a minute until it's nice and smooth right let's see what we got that's beautiful all right so our sauce is all set our potatoes are almost tender it's been eight minutes and I think we're gonna see some really beautiful potatoes I can see that the potatoes really absorbed all that chorizo flavor we just want to check make sure they're tender so I'm gonna use the back of a spoon here and oh yeah they fall right apart so that's great we don't want this to be mashed potatoes but I'm gonna mash about 1/8 of this mixture by mashing just a small amount it's gonna help add some more cohesiveness to it so I'm gonna binder a binder exactly so I'm gonna stir it in you can see it gives it a little bit more body okay we're ready to eat all right so I've got some tortillas that I warmed up now a spoon of our tomatillo and avocado sauce and a sprinkle of cilantro leaves some minced white onion and a squeeze of lime I'd pinch the back side Oh see I folded it hold it in yeah mm-hmm that's really good mm-hmm what's interesting is those potatoes they've sucked up so much of that chorizo flavor my favorite part about all this it's not only is it tasty it was fast well done dad Thanks to make these tacos begin by boiling Yukon Gold potatoes then make your own Mexican style chorizo by combining a homemade spice paste with ground pork served with a fresh tomatillo and avocado sauce and there you have it from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen killer new recipe for chorizo and potato tacos you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with our tastings testings and select episodes at our website America's Test Kitchen calm ready for my next one mm-hmm thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later I'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 211,860

Rating: 4.894475 out of 5

Keywords: cooking, mexican food, learn to cook, learn to cook mexican food, mexican cooking, america's test kitchen, americas test kitchne, masa harina for tamales, masa harina, tamales, red chile chicken, red tamales, chicken tamales, homemade tamales, learn to make tamales, tacos, tortillas, tortilla, chorizo tacos, chorizo, potatoes, chorizo potato tacos, potato tacos, taco recipes, learn to make tacos, ancho chiles, new mexican chiles, recipes, cooking show, cooking tv show

Id: e5wI9cqGAac

Length: 22min 46sec (1366 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2019