Hello! I spent the day learning how to make tamales. I mean, I knew kinda sorta but I’ve never been ‘in charge’ of all the stuff myself. So here is how I made my tamales (there are several types, my fam is from Mexico so we make them with corn husks).
(Note the picture above is why this lil RER blog is a tragedy. Thank you to my brother for this very professional photography… guess there goes my cooking show cred.)
1. Make the meat or filling. I am doing a red chili chicken
I put chicken breasts, spices and chili in a crockpot all day yesterday.
2. Make the masa. Masa is corn dough. I bought the corn meal and mixed it with broth, butter, salt and baking powder – per the directions on the package. Most of the time my family buys it already prepared and carnicerias use lard instead of butter.
3. Soak the corn husks for a few hours. You might have to clean them if there are little corn hairs of whatever on them.
4. Go to your mom’s house so you can make a mess build the tamales there.
a. Take a corn husk and spread a thin layer of masa on it.
b. Add a scoop of filling – meat, cheese/green chili, chocolate chips, bacon…
I also made a batch with green chili and cheese.
c. Fold it closed and fold up the bottom.
5. Steam the tamales for hours and hours and hours until you can’t stand it anymore and have to eat them.
I ditched my mom’s house to come home and work on blog stuff so I don’t have a finished product pic. But here is what they look like with an egg:
Here’s a little video How To:
And check out Tamale Making with my fam from a few years back.
Question: What is one of your family’s holiday traditions??
My other tradition is eating a ton ton ton. I considered asking Santa for a dozen donuts…
My husband grew up having tamales on Christmas Eve, so I always try to have them for dinner at some point during the holiday season. I get them from a local restaurant, but this makes me want to learn how to make them!
By the way, those cream wafers mentioned by Claudia above are soooooo good. I have a friend who brings us a platter of them every year, and it takes about 2 seconds to eat them all!
One of us always makes kruschiki, these days it’s me since my great-grandmother and grandmother have passed away and now my mom has arthritis. Or so she says, I think it’s her excuse to not have to make them. Those tamales look easier to make than I thought they would be, I might have to try them!
Leading up to Christmas, there must be cream wafer cookies – you can tell by the well worn recipe in mom’s recipe box that they are a family fave (http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe76.cream-wafers.html)
Christmas eve my Dad would put together an amazing spread of cold cuts, cheeses, etc. and it was kind of an open house thing. My older brothers would come by and have dinner…and then have my sister and me wrap all of their presents for them. Yeah, we were onto your ways, bros. They all have daughters to do their wrappin’ now ;o)
We don’t have too many traditions, but each year we spend the day with our close family friends just hanging out. Drinks start early (like 10am), and food goes all day. An afternoon nap is perfectly ok. And there is always ham. Lots and lots of ham.
My sister is on her honeymoon, so it’s one of the first Christmases we haven’t been together as a family. It’s going to be a little strange!
Those tamales look amazing – I’ll have to try a tamale one day – I haven’t seem them here (Aus!).
Yum! Sometimes we do tamales on Christmas morning, but our mainstay is lasagna, salad, and garlic bread for dinner, and peppermint ice cream (usually with brownies) for dessert. My husband and I celebrate on Christmas Eve, and we do the parents thing on the Day.
Woh, yum! I totally want to make some!
Awesome!
If you could just mail some of those to Idaho that would be awesome ; ) – they look soooo good! Every Christmas my mom usually make Christmas sugar cookies from scratch and they are so so good. This year she opted to turn them into a cupcake which might have to be a new tradition.
my family tradition is to make loads of tamales to eat for days (maybe weeks lol) and make a ton of mexican ponche and champurrado! 😀
Looks incredible, but straight up leaving this to you. This will be a “pinterest fail” waiting to happen for me!
Hm. I’ve always wanted to know how to make them but I think I’m just far too lazy. That seems like a lot of work. I admire your fortitude.
But I’m happy to eat them if anyone wants to share…I’ll totally take one for the team there.
Except the ones with chocolate. 😉
Tamales:I die!! Why do we just have them at Christmas? I mean that should be at least once a week: pork, chicken, beef = yes!!!! I’m not a huge fan of the other types, but my mom LOVES the pineapple with raisins.
Merry Christmas to my favorite MexiCan blogger! 🙂
YUM!!! I love tamales but have never made them.
Yum! I love tamales. I’m from Texas, so people would bring them as gifts and treats. Now I live in KC and I don’t get to eat them all of the time.
YUM those sound so good!!
I love tamales! I have actually never made them before. I think this is an awesome tradition!
is it sad that i’ve never had a tamale?? (yes)
They look really good!
Those look awesome! I didnt realize so much work goes into making them. They are definitely delicious though so if you have any extra I can take them off your hands…
We decorate molasses “Merry Christmas Cookies” at my grandma’s house – lots of frosting colors and endless sprinkles/toppings! Then we spend the rest of the holidays leaving the container open (because most of us prefer them to be stale) and my grandma closes it up whenever she notices 🙂
Yum! I have never had tamales – to be honest I had no clue what they were. These sound so good and now I want one – or five!
One of our traditions is ordering sushi in on Christmas eve with my parents. Easy and delicious!
My mom usually does tamales on New Years Day. Great job. They look delicious! In the southern parts of Mexico (the Yucatan) the Mayan people wrap the tamales in banana leaves.
Love your apron 🙂
I’ve always wanted to learn how to make tamales. They sound wonderful. How long do you *actually* steam them? 😉
Apparently I’ve started a new tradition this year….it’s called, Eat all the Chocolate and guess what, I’m Winning!
My sister in law always makes dozens and dozens of potato latkes! So delish. I didn’t get any this year yet. I better get over there soon!
I don’t think I’ve ever had one!
Never a latke? That is one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. Southern CA is crawling with great Jewish delis. You need to make this happen. You deserve it!
Yum!