Dinner club menu came out the other day, and because I was slow to respond, I found myself choosing between chips and salsa or tamales, a choice between, easy, in my sleep or new and time consuming. It was too close to the holidays to stray already from my New Years resolutions which coincidentally had been to make tamales. So new and time consuming won, thank goodness, as it turned into a family affair with everyone participating during a warm happy afternoon. Most of the ingredients- corn husks, lard, masa (corn flour), tomatillos, and jalapeno peppers- came from a small, local grocery store in Ann Arbor. Even though I have passed this store for years, it took an internet search to discover it. While there, I picked up chorizo sausage and queso, which not only extended the life of a leftover black bean chicken chili that night, but reinvented it, but that’s another story.
Friday night was prep night– making what I think is a salsa verde, sauteed corn for the filling, and the tamale dough. For the suspected salsa verde, ten year old Stella was my sous chef. We boiled a dozen tomatillos and a few jalapeno peppers, and after ten minutes on the stove, threw them into the Vitamix blender. I melted the lard in the microwave, paused for a chemistry lesson with Stella about how the lard liquefied after which she set to work combining the lard with the masa. It looked a lot like we were making homemade play dough.
Saturday afternoon, we all gathered in the kitchen to assemble the tamales. Only too late did I realize that the tamale recipe I was supposed to have used was not a traditional tamale recipe. Apparently, I was supposed to saute the corn and then add grits and cream to create the filling without the traditional dough. Too late, we already had made the dough, and I didn’t have grits or cream on hand. Sometimes, it pays to be reckless and irresponsible and skip key steps like reading the recipe that your host actually wants you to follow. This was one of those times because we would not otherwise have embarked on making a true traditional tamale.
We forged ahead and immediately ran into an unexpected obstacle. The recipe I was using hadn’t said anything about making the dough ahead of time and storing in the fridge until ready to proceed. The dough was rock solid. We started by adding a little chicken stock, then a little more, and then a little more until we had added three cups. Ready to go, we watched some videos of people assembling tamales and then rolled up our sleeves. The teenagers took a soaked and now pliable corn husk, spread on a thick layer of dough, a tablespoon of corn, a teaspoon of salsa verde, and wrapped the husk, with Dear Husband curating a medley of big voice rockers Stella dancing with great expression, and me tying a corn husk ribbon on each tamale purely for aesthetic purposes.
The final adventure came when rigging up two steamers to hold the four dozen tamales while they cooked for the next ninety minutes. The result, as I proudly informed my family, was “restaurant-quality,” my highest compliment. Making tamales is definitely for weekend, event cooking, and I don’t think the lard is going to put this on anyone’s top ten Healthiest Family Dinners. However, it wasn’t that complicated, the basic recipe is clearly forgiving of mistakes and open to lots of variation, and the participatory nature made it perfect for a family cooking event.