- 4 cups corn masa
- 1 cup pork lard, or if you want vegetarian: coconut oil and olive oil.
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon cumin and/or cayenne, chili powder, pepper…whatever you like
- water, or broth
- Banana leaves, or corn husks.
- Filling
Mix the salt and spices into the dried masa. Then add the lard. Mix and pour water and broth until you get the desired consistency…this would be somewhere between cookie dough and hummus. You want to be able to spread it, but you also want it to hold it’s shape.FOR THE VEGETARIAN: To get something the consistency of lard, melt about 1/2 cup of coconut oil in a pan, and then add 1/2 cup of olive oil to it. Let it cool a little bit and then just use it like the lard.
I prefer banana leaves for wrapping, because they give the tamales a better flavor. For the banana leaves, rip a piece (along the natural vien) that’s about 5 or 6 inches wide. Put about 2-3 tablespoons of masa in there, and spread it around. Put another 1-2 heaping spoonfuls of filling in the middle, and then fold the sides of the leaf over, to close the tamale. Bring the top of the leaf on top of that, and then fold the bottom over the top. Rip a small piece of leaf to use as a ribbon, and tie the thing together. It should look like a nice square package.
If you’re using the corn husks, do the same thing, but usually, one side of the husk will stay open.
You can steam these in a pot, but I’ve found that the easiest thing to do is to get a Chinese dimsum steamer. The bamboo ones with the two levels. They are pretty cheap, and you can steam about 10-12 tamales at a time in them. If you’re making a ton of tamales, one of those pots with a steamer insert will work.
For the bamboo steamer, fill a saute pan with an inch or so of water, and get it boiling. Fill both levels of the steamer with tamales and put it on top. Steam them for about 20 minutes (make sure to keep water in the pan).
They will still feel soft when you’ve removed them, so let them sit for at least 15 minutes before eating. If you’re gonna freeze em, let them cool off, then stack them in plastic bags/containers, whatever, and when you heat them up again, just steam them the same way for about 10 minutes.
