Making Tamales - A Christmas Tradition

My bride is from Corpus Christi, Texas and while my heritage is Cajun, hers is Mexican-American.  A family tradition that she opened my eyes to was making homemade tamales around Christmas-time.  It was something that she grew up doing and she taught us to do.  (She didn't need to teach me to eat them.  I was pretty good at that already!)

Tricia grew up making pork/venison tamales.  This year she decided to make beef/chicken tamales.  She seasoned and cooked a Chuck roast and then sliced it up until it was pretty much shredded.

And she did the same with a chicken. Then she added broth to moisten and added chili powder, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper to season it up.  That will sit for a while as we put everything else together.

Corn husks are an essential in the tamale-making process.  Fortunately, we were able to get all the ingredients locally.  We soaked the corn husks in water to make them pliable.  Tricia mixed up some masa with broth to get the consistency right and added to that coconut oil, tallow and butter as the fat.  To season, she added chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper to the masa.

Once the masa is the right consistency for spreading, it is time to begin putting the tamales together.  You need a butter knife.  Simply get a knife-ful and spread it evenly on about half of the corn husk.

There is a 'front' and a 'back' to the corn husk.  The back has ridges.  The front is smooth.  Spread the masa on the front side.  

Benjamin and I got into the action.  Once you get a few helpers, you can train them in the process and get an assembly line of sorts going.

Once we get a bunch of the corn husks with masa spread on them, we begin putting the meat on them, adding a tablespoon of the meat mixture on the tamales.

Folding the tamales up is the next step.  Tricia is a pro at this and she quickly folds them all up into neat, little packages of deliciousness.

In just a little while we have Nine and a half dozen of them put together and ready for cooking.

Tricia tied them up into bundles of six tamales and stood them up in a pot for cooking.  The tamales are steamed for 2 1/2 hours until done.

Now is the time to test them out.  We take them out of the corn husks, place on a plate and spoon a little tomato sauce on top.

DELICIOUS!  We'll eat them and then share these with family and friends.  The nice thing about tamales is that they freeze so well.  We can pop a dozen out to thaw as we have a tamale craving and can enjoy homemade tamales.