WHERE TO FIND CORN HUSKS FOR TAMALES RECIPES

Steps:

• To prepare chile paste:.
• Break caps off all red chiles and shake seeds out. Soak red chiles in hot water until soft. Blend or process chiles into a paste using a small amount of water in which they were soaked to help it move in the food processor or blender. Put paste through a sieve to remove the skins. Throw skins away. This may be made way ahead of time and refrigerated until you make the tamales.
• To prepare meat:.
• Use the cheapest roasts you can find! Try to cook the meat the day before assembling tamales, keeping it in the refrigerator until tamale-making time. Cut meat into large chunks. Cover meat with water in a very large pot. Add 6 to 12 garlic cloves and 2 or 3 tablespoons salt. Cook meat, covered, for 3 hours or until meat is tender and falling apart. Remove meat from juice and shred. SAVE THE JUICE. Mix meat sauce with the meat.
• To prepare meat sauce:.
• Melt 2/3 cup lard or Crisco and add 2/3 cup flour. Boil for 2 minutes. Pour over shredded meat and mix. Add chili paste, one cup at a time, to taste. Add 1 tablespoon of cumin. Add salt and pepper to taste.
• To mix masa:.
• Place 12 pounds masa (room temperature) in a very large pan and mix with 1 1/4 cups lard or Crisco, 2 tablespoons salt, 2 tablespoons baking powder, 1 cup chile paste and 2 cups meat broth.
• Mix with hands. Add more meat broth (about 1 cup). Add more chile paste for color if desired. Work all ingredients together with hands for about 10 minutes. The dough is ready when a small lump floats slowly to the bottom of a glass of water.
• To assemble tamales:.
• Soak corn husks in hot water until soft. Using the larger husks, place each husk waxy side up (ribbed side down). Spread masa onto each husk out to the wide edge. Place a small portion of meat in the center of masa. (You may place a stuffed green olive on the meat if you care to.) Roll husks and fold back, wide sides to center, then tapered flap up.
• Set a wire rack or vegetable steamer in the bottom of a large kettle. Put water in kettle just up to the bottom of the rack or steamer. Set tamales in kettle standing on end. Pack them in, allowing room for expansion of masa as they cook. Steam for about 20 to 40 minutes, or until masa pulls away from corn husk easily.

Steps:

• Wash the banano leaves and warm them up in hot water on a low heat until they are tender.
• Remove the hard edge of the leaves and cut them in squares.
• Cook the ancho chile until it feels tender. Remove the seeds.
• Blend the ancho Chile, the garlic, the onion, cumin, salt, pepper, and the water.
• Add this sauce to the raw pork.
• In a bowl, stir the cornflour Maseca with the lard. You need to mix it until you get a creamy and homogeneous paste.
• Gradually pour the water in the mix, and keep stirring. Add the salt. Knead the mix until the mass is spongy and soft.
• Place a square of banano leaves on the palm of your hand and put a bit of mass on it. Extend it on the surface of the leaves with the reverse of a spoon. You’ll do this until you feel that you get to the right size of your tamal.
• Add a little bit of the pork in the sauce and distribute it along the tamal. Then fold the tamal.
• Folding this kind of tamal can be tricky. Firstly, you need to fold the lateral edges of the leaves into the center and then you fold the upper and the lower edges on the back of the teal. Repeat this procedure with all the tamales.
• Place the tamale in a steamer. You need to cook them for one hour and a half.
• Serve on a plate with a fork.