Mexican Tamalestamales Mexicanos De Puerco Recipes

TAMALES DE PUERCO (RED PORK TAMALES)

Steps:

• Cut pork into 3 chunks and place in a large saucepan. Add onion, garlic, bay leaves, and salt and cover with water. Bring to a boil; skim foam from surface. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. Remove pork and let cool. Strain broth and reserve.
• Bring a pot of water to a boil while pork is cooking. Add tomatoes, arbol chiles, and guajillo chiles, and boil until chiles are soft, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, reserving cooking water, and allow to cool.
• Place corn husks in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and soak for 30 to 60 minutes. Drain, place on a work surface, and cover with a clean, damp towel.
• Combine tomatoes, 1/2 cup cooking water, chiles de arbol, guajillo chiles, and cornstarch in a blender; blend until smooth. Strain tomato sauce through a fine-mesh sieve.
• Beat lard with an electric mixer in a large bowl until fluffy. Combine masa, 1 cup reserved pork broth, 1 tablespoon salt, and baking powder in a separate bowl and mix until smooth. Add masa mixture to lard and mix until it has a smooth cookie dough consistency. Test if the masa is ready by dropping a small ball of masa into a glass of cold water; if it floats, it's ready, if not, keep beating for a little longer.
• Shred cooled pork with 2 forks.
• Select 1 wide corn husk or 2 small ones. Spread about 2 tablespoons masa mixture onto the the corn husk, filling it up to 2 inches from the bottom and 1/4 inch from the top. Add 1 tablespoon of the tomato sauce and pork down the center of the masa mixture. Fold sides of husk together, 1 over the other. Fold the bottom of the husk over the seam of the 2 folded sides. Repeat with remaining husks.
• Place a steamer insert into a saucepan and fill with water to just below the bottom of the steamer. Bring water to a boil. Add tamales with the open side up and cook until filling is heated through and separates from the husk, about 1 hour. Let tamales rest for 15 minutes before serving.

HOT TAMALES USING CORN FLOUR

Steps:

• In a medium-size pot, combine the pork meat, garlic, onion, Bay Leaf and 1 teaspoon of salt. Cover with the water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer partly covered, occasionally skimming and discarding fat from surface, about 1 hour or until meat is tender enough to shred. Remove onion, garlic, Bay leaf, and discard. Skim the broth and when the meat is cool enough to handle shred into bite-size pieces and set aside.
• While the meat is cooking. Soak the dry peppers in a medium size pot with warm water for about 20 minutes. Drain the peppers and place in the blender with the garlic cloves, cumin and 1/3 cup of soaking water. Process until you have a smooth sauce. Heat the vegetable oil in a medium-size skillet over medium heat, add the dry peppers sauce, 1 cup of the meat broth and cook for 8 minutes. Add shredded pork and season with salt and ground black pepper. Add more broth if needed. Simmer until heated through, about 5 more minutes.
• Place corn husks into a large bowl or pot. Pour enough boiling water over the husks to cover. Place a metal lid or heatproof dish on the husks to keep them submerged. Soak for about 45 minutes. Remove, drain and set aside.
• In a large bowl, beat the lard by hand or with an electric mixer until it is light. Add baking powder and the masa-harina and gradually the stock until dough is very light. If your dough looks dry add more broth or water. Taste and add salt if needed.
• Continue to beat until dough is well combined, light and smooth. To make sure your dough is light enough place a small amount in a glass with water. It will float when it's ready.
• Now comes the fun part. Assembling the Tamales. Place a small amount of the dough in the center of a corn husk. Using the back of a spoon spread the dough and top it with 1 1/2 tablespoon of the meat filling. Fold the sides of the husks. Fold bottom toward the center. And place tamales standing up in your already prepared tamal steamer cover with a layer of corn husks and a dish towel, cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Add more water to the steamer if needed during that time. For more pictures and instructions to assemble and cooking the tamales check this post "Chicken in green sauce Tamales"
• To check for doneness remove one of the tamales and if the husk can easily be removed from the dough they are ready. But if the dough sticks to the husk place back into the pot and cooks for 15 more minutes.

MEXICAN TAMALES,TAMALES MEXICANOS DE PUERCO

Steps:

• 1. Day one cook pork shoulder in a deep pot cover with the water add the quartered onion, garlic, bay leaves, salt and cumin. For added flavor add a tsp of granulated garlic powder to the water bring to a boil skim the scum off the top reduce heat and simmer about 4 or 5 hours. Meat must be falling off the bone tender. Remove from heat and let cool. If you like refrigerate and the next day shredd meat with two forks. Do not remove the congeled fat from the cold broth. You will need this extra fat to make your tamale masa tender.
• 2. Same day Make Red Chile sauce or red tamale sauce to flavor the pork meat. Remove stems and all the seeds from the ancho chiles. In a very large tray like a cookie sheet grease with a little oil and put the dried chiles on it put into a preheated hot oven moderate heat for a few minutes such as 2 1/2 minutes then open oven and turn chiles on the other side and roast 2 1/2 minutes more. Be very careful not to scorch the chiles if they scorch they will turn bitter and you will have to start over. They scorch and burn very easy so you must watch them very closely. This roasting step brings out the deep rich chile flavor. Remove from the oven do not leave in more the 5 minutes total time. Put the roasted chiles in a pot and cover with water add a tsp of salt to the water and add the onion and garlic. Bring the chiles to a boil reduce heat and steady simmer for fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes have passed shut off heat and let cool in their water until they are reasonably able to handle. Next in a blender add half the chiles half the cooked onion, two cooked garlic cloves and process until the chile is throughly blended into a paste. Add half the tablet or disk of Mexican chocolate, half a tablspoon of the peanut butter, half the teaspoon of cumin powder and a little pork broth about a half cup and blend on high until smooth. With a rubber spatula scrape out the chile paste and proceed with the rest of the chiles. remaining onion and garlic, cloves other half chocolate disk or tablet, remaing peanut butter and the other half of cumin powder. Add a little more pork broth about half a cup and process until smooth Do all of your chiles like this you might need more disks of Mexican chocolate and peanut butter to finish all of your chiles. The chocolate and peanut butter round out and smooth the flavor of the ancho chiles.
• 3. Start with one cup of your red chile sauce and add it to you shredded meat mixture you should make sure your meat is warm you can heat it up a little in the micro wave. It will be easier to mix if the meat is warm rather then cold from the refrigerator. Mix your cup of chile paste with the meat and continue to add more chile paste until your meat is moist and saucy but"Not soupy" if your sauce is a little dry add a little more pork broth to it. then mix well and incorporate into your meat. You're meat should look like a saucy pulled pork consistency. Taste to see if it has enough salt and pepper. If You have red chile sauce left over put in small freezer bags, freeze and save for making enchilada sauce or mole. You're meat is now ready to fill the tamales. Set aside.
• 4. The Masa, Using a large roaster deep pan now take your 4.4 pound bag of Maseca or 5 lbs of ground masa if you are lucky enough to find it. Add your Maseca to or ground masa to the deep pan add the melted pork lard shoud be cool enough to handle and add the pork broth by the cupfull make sure it is very warm it should not be hot. You should be able to handle the mixing with your hands. (Note: for this recipe pork lard is what gives these tamales the rich delicious flavor. No amount of crisco or other fat will acomplish the incredible flavor the pork lard gives Mexican Tamales. With that I leave you to make your decision as to what fat to use.) I like to melt my pork fat in the microwave let it cool. Add your salt and baking powder with the pork broth Mix again I do this by hand It can be very tiresome so I get one or two of my strong grandsons to mix the masa for me as I add the broth lard salt and baking powder. If using the Maseca add cupfuls of broth one at a time until you have a nice spreadable consistency. Taste the masa to make sure it has enough salt. Your masa should have the consisteny of a thick soft creamy oat meal or better yet like a think creamy polenta. Set Masa aside and prepair the corn husks
• 5. The Corn husks. Remove corn husks one by and clean and remove any dried corn silk. Again in a very large deep pan I use another roaster I fill with hot water and put all the cleaned and seperated husks to soak. Soaking takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove a large handful and wring the water out by squeezing the husks. Lay in a tray and with a clean dish towel blot the exces water from them. Keep them covered so they do not dry out. Now you are ready for spreading the masa on the husk. Take a butter knife dip in the masa and get a nice amount and spread on the husk over the entire bottom half leaving the top triangle part of the husk bare. Spread like if you would be spreading peanut butter on bread. About a little less then 1/4 inch thick on your husk do not spread all the way to the ends of the husk leave bare a little on each side. Now take a good size tablespoon of meat mixture and lay down the center of the prepared masa husk. Fold one edge of the husk over the other to form a slender tamale. The overlaping masa will help to keep the tamale together. Next fold the top half over the tamale itselt and lay seam down do all of your tamales like this until you have enough to put and stack in a steamer pot to cook.
• 6. Cooking your tamales. If you have a tamale steamer pot you add boing water to the bottom half and stack the tamales standing up in a cicular layers with the open side up. Then on top of those another circular row always standing up the open side facing up. Pour the hot water down the side when adding more water. The tamles should never be emersed in water they cook by steaming. Cover the layers with loose tamles husks and a clean dish towel over everything and then cover. Enough water should be at them bottom to steam the tamlaes for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Some people steam only one hour but when I make tamales I have so many in the pot that I steam for one hour and a half to ensure complete cooking. Be sure you are always nearby so the water does not run out. If the water goes down add more boiling water down the side of the pot. After the time has elapsed shut off and uncover the pot let cool. You can remove with tongs as the tamales will be extreemly hot. When they have cooled you can bag and freeze Some tmes I bag 12 to or 6 to a bag. I always save some to eat the next day you can refrigerate. Always leave your tamales in the husk when freezing remove the husk only to eat. You can eat in the microwave only needs a minute or so to reheat. If you have no tamale steamer you can use a large regular steamer pot such as a crab pot or large lobster pot. Put a large bowl in the middle and some sort of preforated pie pan on top. My grandmother had two large aluminum pie tins that she had my grandfather put holes in all around. She put the pie tin over the bowl so the tamlaes would be above the water. She then would stack her tamales standing up inclining a little towards the center in a cicular position. She would put a large mug in the middle of the pie pan so the tamales could rest aganist it and work around stacking the tamales. I know this recipe will not be made by everyone but for those who have asked good luck and Enjoy.