Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

So ... one whole day of cooking later, and we have pork tamales.

Hot tamales?

Possibly.

*pops neck*

This will seriously take a while.

And will likely tax your aresnal, library and techniques.

You will need

a 2-3 lb pork shoulder roast

About a cup of spice mix (and I will SHARE MINE LATER BE PATIENT!!!)

About 5 cups of tomato juice

One whole onion

1 large or 2 med cloves of garlic

1/2 a jalapeno (more, or a cerano or habanero if your diners are bold)

1 medium jar of diced tomato (or crushed or whole about 2 cups worth)

 

and then you'll need

3 1/2 cups of masa horina

1/2 cup of lard

2-4 cups of liquid (hopefully from preparing the pork)

1 tb of salt

2 1/4 tsp of baking powder

and

some cornhusks (about 2 dozen should be fine)

And yes- that's the portions you use to make Alton Brown's turkey tamale dough.

We didn't make turkey tamales...

Alright

Phase ... -7

I made a pork roast.

I about stabbed my mother when she dropped this beautiful pork shoulder into a hot pot without a damned bit of preparation.

I pulled it out, brushed it off a bit and said

"rub"

This is a woman that does NOT salt meat before she puts it in a pan.

Yes

There are LOTS of things wrong with her.

So... we've got a bunch of spices sitting around

and... they're all crap from the 70's so I went and bought more the other day

and a cornerstone of my indian spanish and mexican cooking

is paprika

GOOD

spanish

smoked paprika.

We don't have mine, it comes in the little tins, so we made do with the mccormik stuff that has

fucking sand in it

Sillicone dioxide.

Whatever.

Sand.

Alright

it doesn't taste bad, but knowing from the good stuff, the primo stuff

does make all the difference in the world

you

are gonna need

a lot

of spice.

2 TB smoke paprika

2 TB hungarian paprika

1 tb of chili flake

1 tb of whole cumin (roasted if possible)

1 tb of curry powder (and yes I mean the premade stuff in a jar)

1/2 tb of dried thyme leaves (or oregano or fuck it- both)

1 tb of red chile pepper

about a 1tb of kosher salt

Grind it with a mortar and pestle, or a blender, or a butter knife with a big butt in a ceramic bowl

... smack that meat (with your rub) tell it its a bad pig and put it in a pan on high heat and brown it on every reasonable side with a bit of lard in the pan.

Now... when its browned, pop it in the oven for about an hour and a half on 350.

Let the roast cool a bit

Phase 2- MAKE THE SPICE RUB AGAIN!!!

I am

dead

farking serious.

make that spice mix again and pound it out etc

throw in the garlic, pound it some more (make sure the cumin is broken up and the garlic gets pastey)

and then pour all of the spicey rendered fat from the roast into the bowl with the spice rub

and mix it around

and set this

heavenly

fatty spicey goo aside.

Resist the temptation to drink it

as it is fantastic.

It should be this DARK sheeny red from all the paprika and chile pepper.

It is a thing of beauty.

Phase 3-

Alright...

so the roast is aside

you should probably dice some vegetables, and you may want to quarter the roast.

Now, in that same deliciously oily spicey pot, throw in your onion and pepper let em take on some color, and then throw in the tomatoes (ur maekin sofrito zomg)

and let the tomatoes dry out a bit in the heat

then you'll want to pour in the tomato juice and let it get to a gentle bubble

then

you put in the oil/spice mix

and that bubbles nice and gently

and then you lay the meat gently into the mix so its mostly covered and evenly spaced

and then you put the pot back into the oven (covered)

for 2 1/2 hours on 350.

... yeah

that's the second (and not the last) time you've cooked this pork.

Phase 4-

Now you may want to assemble the dough, and its pretty god damn simple

dry stuff goes in

fat gets mooshed with your fingers into the dry stuff

and then you pour in the liquid until the dough is about the consistency of cookie dough (and I arm wrestled this dough for about an hour trying to make sure I didn't overhydrate it- turns out the 2-4 cups are necessary and there's no point not just dumping most of that amount in straight away rather than going 2 tablespoons by 2 tablespoons)

I was about halfway done with my stewing so I just went ahead, popped the lid off and got a good amount of my cooking liquid in a bowl to mix with my dough (but don't just drop your hands into that scalding hot liquid, its been in the oven all day work it into the dough first with a fork or something til you won't burn your hands)

I'd advise you to premake 2 tb sized balls of dough now, and to maybe rehydrate your cornhusks in your sink with some hot water- they need at least 10 minuts to soak.

Anyway if you're not ready for the dough (and you shouldn't be)

just put a damp paper towel over the container and pop it in the fridge.

K?

Phase 5-

Alright

so

when the pork is done (again)

you'll want to pull the meat out, and set it on your counter until its cool to the touch, then you'll want to pinch it and shred it in your fingers and put the meat back into the cooking liquid on a gentle simmer and once its all shredded and covered and some of the liquid has cooked down into the shredded pork some more, turn off the heat

go read a book or something, or go plop your dough into your rehydrated corn husks.

Phase 6-

Plop your dough

Corn husks come in a kinda half- cone shape when they rehydrate, so they have a wide end (the top) and a narrow end (the bottom)

You'll want to set your husks on your work surface so they are concave.

dab them dry with a towel, and set them apart and grab your dough balls from the fridge

do

not

over think this step.

Take your dough ball

mash it with your fingers into a mostly square shape along the edge of the top of the wide end (top of the cornhusk) until you have about 1 cm thickness and then take about 2 tsp of your meat filling and layer it in the center of the dough

now take one edge of the cornhusk and fold it around the meat filling so the corn-dough touches, pat the seam together, and then fold the opposite side of the corn husk around and then

take the narrow end of the corn husk (the bottom) and fold that so that the fold cradles the bottom of the tamale inside

The top of the tamale should be right at the edge of the top of the corn husk

and the bottom fold of the cornhusk should kinda form a tip. Set the tamales fold-side down so it doesn't unfurl.

repeat about 20 times.

Then take a spare rehydrated corn husk and cut strips to tie the cornhusk into place with the strips (they have a tendency to come unfolded when standing upright)

snip any excess cornhusk or tips so they'll fit in your steam pot

Phase 905

get a steamer basket or a circular grilling rack, and add about half an inch of water to that same old pot you had before

stand your tamales upright (with the open tops facing up) tied and ready on top of the steam-basket and turn your burner on mid high

wait for the water to start bubbling

cover

and set your timer to 60 minutes

be sure to add more water about every 8 minutes (or more often if you're on a higher heat)

making sure not to get too much higher than 1/2 an inch of water.

Phase 1,000

timer goes off

turn off the heat

extract your tamales

... and you might want to eat a couple. They will be spicey. And warm.

Or you could set them on the counter on a dry cloth and wait for them to cool, and then wrap or contain them to be microwaved later.

And they do microwave really

really well.

I've got at least 16 sitting on my counter now.

And yes, this took most of today.

So much so, that I'm not going to offer alternatives right now

but I do know that there's variation on the meats

the cornmeal/masa harina

the cooking method itself

the flavorful broth

the spices

and you can even spice the dough

And yes

I want to make a shredded lamb curry tamale with a yogurt dipping sauce.

... later though.