You will need: 20 squares of banana leaf (12x12 inches), steamed
40 pieces of kitchen twine or banana leaf strings
1 batch of tamale dough (scroll down for recipe)
Picadillo for filling (see previous recipe)
Bamboo or metal steamer
1. Stack banana leaves.
2. Place 2 spoonfuls of dough on the top leaf and shape it into a rough square.
3. Place a spoonful of picadillo on the left half of the dough square.
4. Bring the left and right edges of the leaf together to surround the filling with dough. Use a rolling motion to make a fat cigar shape out of the tamale.
5. Use the right edge of the leaf to scrape back any dough that has tried to escape. Fold back the leading edge and tighten the roll.
6. Secure the ends of the roll with twine/banana leaf threads.
7. Place in the steamer and repeat; tamales may be stacked in two layers. When the steamer tray is full, cover and steam for 5-10 minutes.
Dough (adapted from Maseca package):
2 C masa harina for tamales
1 t baking powder
½ t salt
2 C warm chicken broth
2/3 C lard
1. Stir together the masa harina, baking powder, and salt.
2. Add broth and mix together.
3. In a separate bowl, beat lard until fluffy. Add reconstituted masa and beat until spongy.
From what I can tell, picadillo originated in Cuba, although the cooking method and ingredients are very Spanish or at least Mediterranean.I made it for tamale stuffing, but you could alsouse it to make excellent tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and tortas.Some versions are fairly dry like a hash, while others are more soupy; this one strives to be dry enough to put into tamales but saucy enough to flavor the tamale dough.The inclusion of raisins and olives strikes some of my friends as disgusting, but after all the ingredients have simmered together for a while, the complex interplay of sweet and salty and spicy with a hint of cinnamon will reward you for your courage.This version calls for fresh tomatoes as well as tomato juice – because those are the ingredients I had on hand – but usually tomato sauce or chopped tomatoes from a can are listed in recipes published online.
¼ lb. ground beef
¾ lb. ground pork
1 T olive oil
3 small yellow onions, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
6 plum tomatoes, chopped
½ handful raisins
10 green olives, pitted and chopped
2 pinches salt
2 T dried Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens)
1 t powdered red chili
1 T ground roasted cumin
2-inch piece of cinnamon bark, single ply
2 T of some leftover Thai chili sauce usually served with grilled pork and sticky rice
¾ C tomato juice
1. Heat olive oil over medium-high flame.Add ground meat and sauté until it starts to brown.Add salt and spices and stir for a minute.
2. Add onions and garlic and continue to sauté until onions are translucent.Stir in carrots and tomatoes and sauté until the tomatoes give off their juice.Add raisins and olives, simmer for a few minutes with the lid on.
3. Add chili sauce along with tomato juice and, after reducing the heat to low, continue to simmer, covered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add salt and chili to taste.
Readers can easily adapt this recipe for personal taste.Despite my admonitions, many of you will leave out the raisins and/or olives – maybe you should just think about making chili instead?Mediterranean oregano (Origanum vulgare) can be used if you can’t find Mexican oregano, but if you can it will be worth it.Instead of the Thai dipping sauce, you can use any number of hot sauces, but I would recommend one based around chipotle, or better yet a single canned chipotle in adobo.I rate this version at about medium-spicy for gringos and probably not very spicy for Thais or anyone in the Americas who grew up eating truly spicy foods.
But whatever you do, for the love of Mike, please don’t forget to use whole cumin seeds and to roast them immediately before grinding and adding in.
This dish is often called "Spanish rice," although it's no more Spanish than French fries are French. I prefer to use achiote seeds (a.k.a. annatto) for a more authentic color and flavor. If you don't have a rice cooker, you can make this in one pot on the stove. Kernels of sweet corn and/or peas can be added with or substituted for the carrot. The technique for measuring the stock along with the tomatoes might seem eccentric, but it will help make sure the rice is not too wet.
2 T olive oil (not extra-virgin!) 2 small yellow onions, diced 1 bay leaf 1 large carrot, peeled and diced 5 cloves garlic, minced 1 1/2 C long-grain rice 3 plum tomatoes, diced Chicken stock (2 C minus the volume of the tomatoes)
1. Over a medium-high flame, heat oil until shimmering. Add onions and bay and saute until onions start to brown.
2. Add carrots and saute for a couple minutes. Add garlic and saute for one minute. Add rice and saute until fragrant and just starting to brown.
3. Place the chopped tomatoes in a measuring cup and add chicken broth up to the 2-cup mark. Add to the rice and bring to a boil.
4. Remove everything to a rice cooker and let it cycle. Or, slap a lid on, turn the heat down as low as possible, and leave it alone for 15 minutes.
5. Either way, fluff the rice and re-cover for five minutes before serving.
1. Pick through 1/2 lb. dried pinto beans. Soak them in several inches of water for 8-24 hours.
2. Drain and rinse beans. Place in a slow cooker and add water to twice the volume of the beans. Set to high.
3. After two hours, stir the beans. Check and stir every hour until the beans are no longer hard inside (al dente is okay).
4. Add 3 generous pinches of salt and a tablespoon of ground roasted cumin. Stir and mash the beans, then simmer for another hour. If you prefer whole beans and don't intend to refry them, you can skip the mashing.
5. Reduce heat to low. Mash and stir and taste. Add more salt if desired.
6. Continue cooking until the beans are smooth and creamy. Don't forget to stir them at least once an hour. If the beans are too runny, leave the lid off for a while; if they are too thick, add some water.
7. To convert frijoles de olla into refritos, simply fry the beans in your favorite fat or oil until the beans are glossy and heated through. If you prefer not to use animal fat, olive oil (not extra-virgin; its smoking point is too low) will give a good flavor.
Making tamales is a lot of work, especially when you’re new to it or out of practice.The saving graces are that it’s almost just as easy to make a lot as it is to make a little and that they hold up well to freezing and refrigeration.Reheating them with microwave or steam is a snap.
The first night I made what most people call Spanish rice, but which I’ve stubbornly named Mexican rice pilaf.After sautéing aromatics, veggies, and rice, I transferred the lot to the rice cooker along with some chicken stock.After the rice cooker popped into warming mode, I fluffed the rice and added some refrigerated tamales to the top, then pushed the button for another cook cycle.When the button popped again, the tamales were perfectly steamed and ready to eat. Meanwhile, I refried the frijoles de olla in fresh drippings from six pieces of chopped bacon.I could have use lard if I had any left, but I had used it all for the tamale dough.
The hearty simplicity of tamales with beans and rice topped with sour cream and green onion was so satisfying that I barely missed the pico de gallo I would normally have made to go with it.
For reheating the second night, I cut a new piece of banana leaf and used it to line the stovetop steamer.I placed the refrigerated rice pilaf on the leaf, added the last two tamales to the side of the steamer, cranked up the heat, and let ’er rip for about five minutes.Setting this aside, I made a new batch of refritos. The tamales and rice were every bit as fluffy and tender as if they were made that day.Both the rice cooker and the stovetop steamer were equally suited for reheating.
I guess I should mention here that my stove has only one burner, which is what most people in Thailand have.Organizing oneself to cope with cooking only one pot at a time can be challenging at times for those of us accustomed to the profligate four-burner stove, but I have found that this arrangement better suits my attention span.
I’m fortunate enough to be renting a house with several banana palms in the back yard, so finding banana leaves was a lot easier than finding corn husks.No one in northern Mexico or the U.S. would use anything but corn to wrap their tamales, but please don’t try to pull the authenticity card on me – in tropical Latinoamerica, places like Guatemala and Peru, they wrap their tamales with banana leaves.I’ve eaten hundreds of things that have been steamed or grilled in banana leaves, but until now I’ve never personally tried to cook with them.
If you don't have a banana tree, the local markets will sell you a packet of leaves for almost nothing. You can also find ears of corn at the markets, but having grown up eating perfectly ripe sweet corn picked the same day, I find the stuff available here to be overripe and starchy. In other words, I'm not gonna buy a bunch of corn just to use the husk and throw the rest away. Banana leaf it will be....
Monday.First I went to the back garden, grabbed the machete, and with a few clumsy left-handed chops took down the two largest and cleanest-looking leaves from the tallest tree.Then I used a paring knife to strip the leafy parts away from the central stalk.The trickiest part was that while cutting against the grain the leaves want to split parallel with the fibers, so you have to watch out or you’ll end up with thin strips instead of wider sheets.I cut away any brown spots and washed off the cocoons and dried gecko poop.After wiping down the leaves with a clean cloth, I carefully folded the leaves and placed them in a metal steamer for several minutes.This made them more pliable and less likely to tear while handling them.
Next I made the picadillo for stuffing and then the tamale dough (recipes forthcoming).
I’m happy to run my mouth as if I were an expert on any number of subjects, but making tamale dough ain’t one of them.Instead, I’ll refer you to what looks like a great recipe: http://www.fronterakitchens.com/cooking/recipes/recipe_porktamales.html; as far as it goes for gringos cooking Mexican food, I can’t think of anyone more credible than Rick Bayless.I ended up with 2/3 C of lard, so I was shooting for a half recipe.Then I discovered a different and more straightforward recipe on the side of the masa harina bag, which is the one I ended up using.
With fingers like sausages, my strong suit isn’t stuffing and rolling things like dumplings and tamales, so they always turn out looking pretty rough.In the trade, the euphemism used for inexpertly shaped food is “rustic.”As I progressed with stuffing my rustic tamales, I experimented with different techniques for rolling – with the grain of the leaf, against the grain, using various amounts of filling – but I never seized on a single best approach.Could be I was too hungry to think straight.
I steamed two panfuls of tamales.The first batch I rolled without tying off the ends, so the tamales turned out a bit too soft and wet.For the next batch I used thin strings torn from leftover banana leaves to secure the ends.As I had hoped, this second batch turned out moist and light and fluffy. Despite the dark color of the lard, the dough tasted rich and savory without overpowering the whole. The complex seasoning of the stuffing still shined through the hearty flavor of the dough, but in the future I will season the stuffing even more aggressively.
Because I was so damned hungry and because the steamer was pumping out such a great smell, I ate five or six of the tamales without bothering to make the beans ’n’ rice that would comprise the next day’s feast.
