Tamale roundup

The Christmas, 2009 Tamale Season has come and gone. Lupe and I are recovering from a marathon of roasting, simmering, straining, mixing, filling and steaming. This was our most successful tamale making effort to date. We made at least six distinctly different types of tamales, including several new recipes made up on the fly.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

I started preparations for tamale season on the Friday before Christmas. I desperately wanted to do all my shopping before the weekend, as I have experienced just how bad North Gate Market can get on the weekend before Christmas (OK, North Gate is a zoo even on slow days, but it is horrible right before Christmas). I hit the store early Friday morning and it was already bad. Fully 83% of all Mexicans living in the greater San Diego/Tijuana metropolitan area were already there when I arrived. Oi vey! I finally found a parking spot and put on my hiking boots for the trek to the store. I got a cart and headed straight for the big bin with the packages of hojas de maize (corn husks). Competition for the best looking hojas was fierce. Lots of old Mexican women were gathered around the bin, busily sorting through the packages. They were snorting and tossing back packages left and right; angrily complaining about the inferior quality (no habla...so they could have been bitching about their daughter-in-laws for all I know). I tried to act like I knew what I was looking for. I picked up a few packages and tossed them back, grumbling about the inferior quality. I don't think I fooled any of the old ladies. They were smirking as I grabbed a couple of packs and turned to leave. Then I realized that somebody had taken my cart. Damn, sneaky old ladies. I had to put the hojas back and go outside to get another cart. When I got back inside, the bin was almost empty. I ended up having to take the hojas that the old ladies had rejected. More smirks (ay pinche guero). I got a ton of dried chiles; guajillo, ancho, negro, morita, de arbol and New Mexico. The next half hour was spent wandering through the produce section. The cart was rapidly filling with my grab some of everything shopping strategy. Once again I felt the need to get a bag of banana leaves. I've never made tamales in banana leaves, but I figured we gotta' try it. At least I didn't by the 6' sugar cane stalk this time.

Next stop; the carneceria. Oh how I love that place. You can walk right by the meat department in most supermarkets and wouldn't know it was there. The only sound you hear from behind the meat counter is the soft whir of the plastic wrap roller as the pre-cut meat gets placed in little plastic trays. I can't even remember the last time I actually heard a band saw or a knife being steeled at my local Von's. I don't think their butchers even know how to cut meat anymore. North Gate is different. There is a constant buzz of activity, with dozens of butchers feverishly working behind the counter. Just about anytime you look in the back there are butchers actually cutting meat to order. And it smells like meat. I can't smell anything when I am in the meat section of a regular supermarket. It might as well be the canned foods aisle. At North Gate you can smell meat, blood and the pungent aroma of marinades. I had almost forgotten what a real meat market was like before I started going to North Gate. You actually see that meat comes from animals when you're in a real carneceria. Need a pig's head? They got 'em. Tripe, hearts, kidneys, beef cheeks, tongue, trotters; all here. A little slice (pardon the pun) of carnivore heaven. The only thing that even comes close to the visceral carnival at North Gate is the meat department at the Zion Korean Market. The band saws run full time, cutting pork belly, in that place. On top of all the cool meat products, they have a ton of bizarre and tasty seafood. Need a cod stomach or needle fish......that's your place. But I digress - back to tamales.

Twenty pounds of pork shoulder, 10lbs of beef and 2 yards of chorizo sausage crowds the cart as I head to the tortilleria. Not having any idea how much masa I'll need, I just grab two bags and hope that it's enough. That's about 23lbs of masa. With the shopping cart groaning under the weight of all the food, I head for the check-out. North Gate has pretty good prices and I can usually get out of there in under $50. Not this day. What the hell did I buy? I ask myself that over and over as I start the overland trek back to the truck.

When I got home I started to prep the meat for the filling. I had three different preparations for the beef and pork. I dry-rubbed the beef with an ancho chile mix and some of the pork shoulder got a mix of Cayenne and smoked paprika. The beef and some of the pork were slow roasted in the oven. I lined the bottom of the pans with onion, garlic and jalapenos (tomatillo in the pan with the pork). A little chicken stock in the pans to keep things moist and into a 325 oven for several hours. While the rest of the meat was roasting, I prepped another 5lb chunk of pork shoulder to go in the slow cooker. This was basically cochinita pibil. The slow cooker is lined with banana leaves and the pork is placed inside and topped with sliced onion, garlic and hot yellow peppers (chile guero). A mixture of lime juice and achiote paste is added along with some water or stock for cooking. The banana leaves are folded over everything and you let it go for 6 hours or so. Lupe has fallen in love with the cochinita pibil. The acidic tang of the lime and the earthiness of the achiote really goes well with the rich, fatty pork. I wanted to try it in the banana leaf tamales to try and get a Southern Mexican flavor.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

While the meat was cooking, we started toasting the chiles for the sauces. Lupe removed the seeds and cut the chile into manageable sizes. We had two cast iron pans going continuously for a half hour as we toasted a buttload of chile. That'll open your sinuses.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

The smartest thing I did all day was to call Lupe's sister Lorena and ask her if she wanted to come down to San Diego for our little tamale party. Fortunately, she was game for our little adventure. She hopped the Surfliner and got down here on Saturday morning just as the last of the meat finished cooking. Lorena and Lupe started on the masa as I worked on the sauces. Lupe has perfected the masa. She adds extra butter and baking powder to the masa preparada for the perfect, light fluffy tamale. I am usually not a big fan of tamales, because they are often hard, thick, tough and dry. Our tamales are the only ones that I really like.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

I made the traditional chile sauce for the tamales. After the chiles are toasted they are gently simmered to release the flavor. My mother-in-law steeps the chiles in water, but I use chicken stock for a fuller flavor. After they have simmered in the stock for an hour or so, I remove the chiles and puree them in a blender. I do this a little differently as well. Lupe's mom laboriously runs the puree through a chinoise to get a smoother product. I'll do that for enchilada sauce, but not for tamale filler. My tamale filling is going to have some body, so there's no need to strain it. I sautee some finely diced onions and garlic in a large pot and then add the chile puree and some of the steeping liquid. After separating the fat, I'll add all the pan drippings from the roasted meat. The sauce is seasoned with salt, pepper, cinnamon and clove. Depending on how much volume I'm looking for, I'll add more stock. This will reduce on the stove top for at least an hour or more. This is the base for a couple of the filling mixtures that I'm going to be using. When it is ready it will be a rich, thick, smooth sauce with a gentle warmth.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

I make one base sauce for the pork and another for the beef. The primary difference being the pan drippings and the stock used (chicken for the pork and beef stock for the beef). The red sauce for the beef is split into two even portions for the final flavors. I wanted to make a chipotle sauce and one that had more of a pronounced tomato flavor. The Chipotle sauce was easiest. I just added some finely diced chipotle en adobo and a couple of cans of San Marcos chipotle sauce. Instant chipootle goodness. The other sauce got some diced, roasted tomato and a couple of cans of El Pato hot tomato sauce.

After the meat was roasted, I shredded it and mixed in all the veg that was in the roasting pan. When you're making a ton of tamales it is best to store the meet in ziploc bags. You can easily store them in the fridge until you are ready to add to the sauce. I froze a couple of bags that I used for the tamales that I made after Christmas.

The shredded beef was mixed with the sauces to get the proper consistency. I am looking for just enough sauce to coat all the meat and make a moist filling, but not so much that it will be runny and difficult to wrap.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

I made three batches of red sauce filling (pork, beef & chipotle beef) for the first round of tamale making. While I was finishing the fillings, Lupe and Lorena were roasting about 15lbs of tomatillos, jalapenos and anaheim chiles. They pureed this mix and put it in roasting pans in a slow oven to cook down.

As the 'Tamale Twins' got busy filling the first batch of tamales, I started on the cochinita pibil filling for the banana leaf tamales. I reserved the cooking liquid from the slow cooker and separated out the fat. The pork was shredded and mixed with the onions, garlic and peppers. I sauteed finely diced onion and garlic in a pan and then added the cooking liquid. The only seasoning that I used was salt, pepper and some Amazonas hot yellow pepper sauce. After the sauce reduced down to the right consistency I added the shredded pork. That stuff is so tasty it is hard not to eat it all up before it goes into the tamales.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

Before I even started on the chile verde for the rest of the pork, Lupe warned me that we were running low on masa. She wanted to stop with what we had already made, but I wasn't having any of that. Off to North Gate for more masa. I was dreading this trip. If Friday morning was bad, then Saturday afternoon would surely be worse. Surprisingly, North Gate was just about as empty as I had ever seen it. I grabbed another 12lbs of masa and was off to find Food Saver vacuum seal bags. We started by vacuum packing a bunch of raw tamales for Lorena to take back home. We did so many tamales, we quickly ran out of bags. I hit two other stores before I went to the Navy Exchange. I knew exactly where they were at the NEX. Unfortunately, they have been doing a lot of work on the 32nd St. Exchange since I was last there. I ended up going to three different buildings before finding them. By the time I got home Lupe and Lorena had finished making the first batch and it was already done steaming. They had even finished up all the banana leaf tamales.

From The Hollow Leg Diner - images

After taking a brief dinner break to sample our goods it was back to work. Lupe mixed the last batch of masa and I started the chile verde sauce for the filling. The tomatillo-chile puree had been slow-cooked for a couple of hours. I transferred it to pots and added the pork roast pan drippings and chicken stock. This reduced down to a nice smooth, rich consistency. One batch was mixed with shredded pork and the other with a variety of cheeses. I used a mix of queso quesadilla, mozarella, pepper jack and cotija for the chile verde-cheese tamales. We filled tamales until we ran out of masa once again. Maybe I'll have these ingredient measurements worked out by next year. Lupe made an executive decision and told me that we were finished and that I was forbidden to go back to North Gate. We wrapped up at nearly 10pm; 15 hours after starting our little tamale party. Once again, I got carried away and we made way too many. The freezer was packed solid and there wasn't an inch of open space in the fridge.

The next morning we fired up the forklift and loaded up Lupe's Escape for the trip up to Long Beach. I was a little worried about going through the scales at the San Clemente Inspection Station with the load that we were carrying. Luckily, we didn't get pulled over, so no overweight tickets.

We got to Lupe's parent's house and unloaded our tasty cargo. Lupe's mom looked happy when we explained that we had brought a bunch of raw tamales. Now she wouldn't have to make them herself on Christmas Eve. I also managed to pawn off 20lbs of pork shoulder on her. That pork had been taking up space in our freezer for weeks. Now I could finally see the bottom of my freezer and the fridge only had ten packs of tamales left in it. I sure am glad they have three refrigerators at her house.