Tamales

Yes I did it!

I have always wanted to try making homemade tamales and decided it was time.

A few years ago when My Man's business grew, he hired a few hispanic men to come on board.

One of them had a wife who would make us homemade tamales.

They were both amazing and fire breathing hot.

We loved them!

We've ordered them in restaurants and have had good ones and not so good ones.

When I decided to make my own, I did a little research on cooking and preparation methods.

I ended up beef tamales because we have 6000 pounds of beef in the deep freeze (remember?) and I needed to use that instead of buying a pork butt to cook.

So, I kept it really easy.

I used a roast, seasoned it with homemade taco seasoning (another little something up my sleeve) and cooked it in the crock pot all day.

Then I shredded it, left it in the crock pot and put it in the fridge.

I also soaked my corn husks overnight.

The next day I made my MASA filling.  This is just Masa, crisco, and juice from the roast.  You combine to make a wet dough.

I should have taken some pics of the steps but my hands were very busy.

Drain and towel dry the husks.

Lay one out, spread a thin amount of the Masa mixture all over the husk, leaving a 1-inch boarder.

Scoop the meat in a vertical line down the middle of the husk on top of the Masa.

There are several ways to roll a tamale.  I decided to take each side and bring them up to meet, then roll them down nice and tight.  This left one end to fold up and make a bottom and the other end is open.  I took an extra corn husk and ripped it into 1/4 inch long pieces.  I tied one string around each tamale to hold the bottom fold down.  

To cook them, I used my pasta pot.

Pack them in nice and tight and steam for a good 30-40 minutes.

They were really really good.

Like really.