[upbeat jazzy pop music]
- Clean this crap up.
- I know.
- Come on.
- Got it.
So we're making tamales today.
I'm really excited because I love tamales,
and normally my family
makes them for Christmas,
as is pretty traditional throughout Mexico
and the southwest United States.
This recipe is sort of a northern Mexican,
Tex-Mex version of tamales.
This one is my favorite,
it's pork and red chilies.
It's what I grew up with,
my family's from northern Mexico,
and I grew up in Texas.
So that's what I'm gonna
make for you today.
What I have here are some dried chilies.
I've got five anchos here,
I really like these,
they have a very sweet, slightly spicy,
kind of earthy flavor.
They also give a really
beautiful red color.
I've got chili moritas,
which are dried, smoked jalapenos.
They give you a little bit of heat
and some smoke, which I also really like.
These are guajillo,
which are a little bit earthy,
they can be a little spicy,
but they also have a
really beautiful red color.
And then these are
pasilla, which are black.
That's because they're dried
when they're green, and
then they turn black.
These have more of a vegetal
kind of herby note to it.
I'm gonna take these to the stove,
and we're gonna make the chili puree.
First thing that we're gonna
do is I've got some lard,
because there's pork,
and I like animal fat.
I'm just using this to saute the onions,
so I'm using a small onion,
it can be white, it can be yellow.
White is pretty traditional
in Mexican cooking.
We're just gonna get a
little bit of color on these.
So I'm gonna toast coriander and cumin.
This is an optional step,
but I think it adds so much flavor.
Okay, so they'll start
to get nice and fragrant,
they'll start to turn color a little bit.
I'm gonna go ahead and add the
tablespoon of cumin to this.
You wanna keep these moving
because the cumin will burn.
And that extra little
smoke is just gonna add
to the smokiness of the dish,
we're not burning these, the fire's off,
I'm just using the residual
heat to finish toasting.
Now I'm going add my chilies.
In many places in Mexico it's common
to toast the chilies.
I do like a toasted chili
but I think in this dish,
these are really fresh chilies,
and I just love the flavor of them.
They have a really nice bright sweetness
that I think pairs very
well with the pork,
so I'm not gonna toast them.
I'm gonna add my dry spices,
I'm gonna add some Mexican oregano,
gonna add some garlic,
and I have a cup and a half
of chicken stock.
Homemade is always best,
but if you don't have, box stock is fine.
That is coming to a boil,
now I'm gonna cover that.
All that I want to have happen
is I want the chilies to
rehydrate and soften up.
It's gonna take about 30 minutes,
and then we'll puree them.
And it's been 30 minutes.
Actually, I'll take them over here.
I turned them on so actually
they're really hot now.
That was dumb.
They're still a little bit warm.
Now we're just gonna puree this.
You want these to be
as smooth as possible.
[blender whirring]
I love this red color.
Can I just tell you,
my father has a blender that's
probably older than I am,
and when I go home and I make
him tamales, like 20 dozen,
I have to make the chili puree in batches.
That thing is so horrible, like it-- ugh.
It would probably be easier and faster
if I just chewed up the
chilies and spat them out.
That's so awful.
- We're filming.
- Yeah, don't film this.
[laughing]
- Don't film this.
- Yes, that is a great color.
[laughing]
[blender whirring]
- Now, we're gonna take a
quarter cup of this paste
and we're gonna hold it back for the masa,
but just look at that,
it's really beautiful.
It's the consistency of a tomato paste,
it's super fragrant,
it's all of the chilies,
the onion, the garlic, the spices.
All right, we're just gonna
add the rest of this puree.
I'm using a pork shoulder and belly,
and I'm just gonna give this a stir.
Oh, lookit-- that's just so beautiful.
I love that so much.
- Where are you going?
- I'm gonna heat this up.
[laughing]
So I just wanna give the
oven a little head start,
I just wanna heat this up
until I see some bubbles,
then I know it's hot.
Then I'm gonna cover it
and throw it in a low oven,
so it'll go 250 degrees for about 2 hours,
until the meat is just
like falling apart tender.
250. Boom.
This is the masa.
So masa is just the
Spanish word for dough.
Tortilla dough is a
little bit finer grind,
I like the-- this is a
coarser grind for the tamales.
This is also yellow corn,
I think the yellow has
really, really good flavor.
It's a little bit stronger,
it kinda tastes like a corn nut,
or-- and I mean this in
the best possible way--
that really corn flavor
that you get from a Frito.
For tamales, because you want almost like
a soft, pudding-like texture for the masa
after they've steamed, you
need to add a lot of fat.
So because this is a pork
tamale, I'm using lard.
So this is a cup and a quarter
of rendered lard, melted.
It really won't work otherwise.
Like if you try and steam the tamales
without adding a lot of fat,
it's gonna be really grainy,
it's gonna break apart,
it's just gonna be really unpleasant.
I'm also using a quarter
cup of chicken stock,
a tablespoon of kosher salt,
and actually the salt
and then this last thing
that I'm gonna add are
very, very different
than how you would see
this done in Mexico.
And I've actually gotten
yelled at by some people
that are like
"This is not the way that
you do it in Mexico."
Which I totally, I get.
In my mind, if you're gonna go through
the bother of getting fresh corn masa,
I wanna taste it, so I'm
gonna add salt to it.
The other thing that I do,
and this is something that my mom did,
is she seasoned it with a little bit
of the chili puree from the pork.
I think it adds a really beautiful color,
I think it adds a lot of flavor.
I'm just gonna use my hands.
You could put this in a stand mixer,
which is actually a lot easier,
but it's kind of fun to play in here.
What you are actually trying to do,
besides incorporate all of
the ingredients into the dough
is you're trying to
aerate it a little bit,
make it really nice and smooth.
And also incorporating all of the lard
will get it to the point
where it won't stick.
But right now you can see
it's definitely sticking
to my hand, so that tells me that it needs
a little bit more fat.
Does this look gross on camera?
- Yeah.
- My dad calls this the slap test,
since that's how you know
when the masa's done;
if you can slap it down
and it won't stick.
So this one obviously is still sticking,
so I'm gonna add a little
bit more lard to it.
'Cause basically if it
sticks to your hand,
then it's going to stick to the husk,
and you'll never be able to pull it out
even once it's steamed.
And so now you can see,
did the slap test, hand came out clean.
So you can see it's really
nice, it's a nice consistency,
it's still pretty smooth, it's pretty wet,
it's kind of like the
consistency of peanut butter.
And that's really what you're looking for,
but it definitely should not
stick that much to your hand.
So it's a lot better now that it was.
Now we're gonna check the pork.
It has been about two hours.
I think I'm just gonna
go ahead and pull this.
[groans]
Oh it smells so good and I
haven't even opened the lid.
Oh yes.
So this is what you're looking for;
you're looking for just, with the spoon,
just being able to smash that meat
and see how it just kind of flakes apart.
Ugh, it's so good.
Okay, so I'm gonna use a masher,
smash the meat into the sauce.
Look at that, it's just
like, it's coming apart.
Ah, that's exactly what you want.
You want to break it
up as much as possible
so that the shreds of meat
can absorb all of that sauce.
And then this is not
necessarily traditional,
but whenever I braise meats
for a long period of time,
I like to hit them with a
little bit of acid at the end.
So I've got a tablespoon
of apple cider vinegar,
and I'm just gonna stir this in.
That's just gonna wake
up all those flavors,
it's gonna give it a a really nice tang.
You're not gonna be able to tell
that there's vinegar in there,
it's just going to make the
chilies taste more like chili.
I'm gonna let this sit and
cool down for a little bit,
then I'm gonna transfer it to a container,
wrap it up, put it in the fridge,
let it chill and solidify.
That's gonna make it a lot easier
to assemble on the back end.
So these tamales are going
to be wrapped in corn husks.
These are dried and one
thing that you need to do
before you actually assemble the tamales,
is you need to wash them and soak them.
If you try and spread the
filling onto this right now,
you'll run the risk of tearing the husk.
We've got our masa that's ready,
this is the pork, we've let it cool off
and refrigerated it for a few hours.
It's much easier to scoop and fill
when it's hard 'cause it holds its shape.
If you try and do this when
the chili is still warm,
it's just gonna ooze out the sides
and then ends of the tamale.
Okay, I'm gonna show you, everybody watch.
Okay, so, you have a scoop,
I'll scoop out all the
dough and put it on here,
but what I need you guys to do is,
first we're gonna spread all the masa.
- Is this an assembly line?
- It's gonna be an assembly line, okay?
So the way that you do this,
is basically just take your putty knife,
and just work down, and
then work to the sides.
You just want a nice, even layer,
about 4 to 5 inches from
the bottom of the husk.
When we're done with all the husks,
then we'll start the meat.
What do you mean?
- You're doing great.
- That's okay.
- You're doing great.
- Is it, Rhoda?
- Yeah.
- You don't know.
- I'm out.
- Nobody?
- What, you broke the putty knife?
[laughing]
- Oh!
- Tommy! Oh my god!
- Okay toots, I'm done, hand me a knife.
- You're so strong.
I'm gonna scoop a little ball
of filling in the center.
- Okay.
- And then you just make a
little log in the very center.
Fold one side over, hold
that side, pinch it,
and then fold the tail over.
- That's it!
- I've been doing it wrong for so long.
- You did it, and you
made it look real easy.
- But it is super easy!
- You know how I've been doing it?
- How've you been doing it?
- Like a dummy.
I just make a little divot
and then I'm like why can't
I get any filling in there?
- Wait, wait, that's how you put -
- Oh she has an es puedes-
- And I've just been trying
to cram my filling in there.
I'm sorry.
- Now you know.
- Well it's a good thing
we made this video.
Yeah, that's right.
- And then this goes back, or-- ?
- That one just gets torn, yeah.
- This way.
- And then this goes under.
- Yeah.
- Thank you, you guys are amazing.
- Look, I'm cleaning for you.
- And you're so sweet, aww.
- Like you don't know me. [smooches]
- We had that amazing tamale party
and we have our beautifully
assembled tamales
ready to be steamed.
So now I'm gonna show
you how to prep the pot.
There are a number of
different ways to do this,
there's a special tamale
pot with a steamer insert
that you can get,
I find this is sort of the hack for that.
So what I like to do is take--
these are all the little
trimmings from the husks,
and just kind of line the
bottom of the pot with this.
So what this is gonna
do, is it's gonna prevent
the tamales from burning and sticking
to the bottom of the pan.
They're also going to absorb some of
the liquid as the tamales steam,
and so they're gonna impart
a little bit of flavor,
they're gonna hold onto
some of that moisture,
and make sure that the
steam is always present
and the water's not gonna
completely evaporate.
And then we're gonna take
a piece of aluminum foil
and you just wanna wad it up into a ball.
And so what this is gonna do,
we're gonna put this in
the center of the pot,
we're gonna rest all of the
tamales around the ball.
If I tried to without the ball,
they're just gonna lay flat,
and once we put the liquid in,
the filling is gonna ooze out.
So the ball is just gonna
keep them from falling down,
and you just wanna stack
them around the ball,
seam side out.
Make sure that the tail is down,
'cause that's gonna prevent
any water from coming in,
and you want the opening on
the filling to be pointed up
so that it's not gonna leak out.
And then just stack.
And this is gonna make sure
that they steam evenly.
That is everybody.
All right, now I'm going
to add chicken stock.
You just wanna pour it along the side,
try to not pour it into
the seam of the tamales.
All right, so now we're
gonna take this to the stove.
I'm gonna bring this to a boil,
and then I'm gonna reduce to a simmer.
It's time to check the tamales.
So--
- Heey, oooh!
- Whooooah!
You tell me when you're ready.
Okay, so yeah, we're
gonna check the tamales.
Ooh, they look really good.
Ah, that smells so amazing.
Okay, so it's really, really hard to tell
just by looking whether
they're done or not.
So what I find to be the
best method for doing this
is just pull one out and let it sit,
and we're gonna let this sit
for about five minutes to cool down.
If we try and unwrap it right now,
you're not gonna be able to tell
whether it's raw or not.
The masa needs to cool off a little bit
'cause it's really soft.
In about five minutes, we'll unwrap it,
and if it comes cleanly off the husk,
and we taste it and it
tastes like it's cooked,
then it's done.
Sola!
- Yeah!
- Okay.
All right, you're gonna--
this is our tester, okay?
- Okay.
- All right.
- I'm really excited.
- So it might be raw, but...
[laughing]
- I can take it.
- Yeah.
- Do I need a spoon?
Am I just gonna--
- A spoon?
- I mean a fork, or a utensil.
- My god.
So it's coming off the husk,
so that is a very good
sign that it's done,
and just by looking at it I can kinda tell
that it's done and I just wanna put
the whole thing in my mouth, but I'm not.
- You have to share half with me.
- I have to share half with you.
- Thank you.
- So I'm gonna give you that half.
- Appreciate it.
- I know that it's actually cooked,
and so now we're just gonna enjoy this.
- We should cheers.
- Cheers.
[laughing]
- This is really good.
- It is really good.
- It's really good.
Wait are there gonna be more?
- Oh, Gabby.
- Yeah, so they're done,
let me turn the pot off.
I'm going to transfer these over to
a rack inside of a sheet
tray to let them cool off.
The thing about the tamales is that
they need at least five
minutes to just set.
If you try and open them
up when they're super hot,
it's gonna stick to the husk.
All right, that's it.
Tamales.
Does everybody know how
to peel and eat these,
or should I--
- Show us!
- Demonstrate for the--
- Show us how you peel the tamale.
- Okay.
It should, if it's properly
larded, and properly cooked,
it should just peel right off the husk,
just like that. Do you want
me to just keep going since--
- Yeah.
- Okay cool. Mm.
- Mm, you're right. So good.
- I just love the corn, but I also like
the filling versus corn,
to me that's the right amount.
- It's a really good balance, yeah.
- Can I have another one?
- Yeah! Here, do you wanna--
here, you want me to--
Yeah, let's just keep going.
This is what my family does,
we just like, the first pot is done,
you open the lid and everybody
just like goes in for the kill.
- Thank you.
- Thanks, Rick.
- Are those done?
- Good, I'm gonna eat those.
Thank you!
Actually no but really, thank you,
'cause you guys helped,
and that's what's great about tamales,
is that, you know,
everybody helps, everybody eats,
it's just fun, it's a big party.
Yay. Do it, do it.
My afire island body thanks you.
[laughing]
- Okay, I'm gonna find it.
- I missed the bowl.
- I'm gonna find it.
I'm gonna find it.
- You can pick it up, Gabby, it's fine.
