My sister Shannon has a man who comes to her work to sell tamales every other week. Apparently he only uses maza and meat. That's not a tamale. That's a corn paste burrito. Whatever. Good tamales have lots of stuff in them, and the tamale equivalent of a Cracker Jack surprise: whole black olives. (Usually only one per tamale, but we put two.) :)
So, mom bought the meat a few days ahead of time. She forgot how much she was supposed to buy, and ended up buying twice as much as we needed. Oops! Good thing we like meat! She froze half of it for use in something else at a later date. We decided to do the tamale assembly on tuesday, so I started the prep monday night.
The first (and easiest) thing I did was cut the tamale strings. Last year I learned how to make tamales when I went to help Aunt Mary, Uncle Don and Pama. They have been making tamales at Christmas for YEARS, and are pros! Mom came with me, and my cousin Victor was there to help as well, so we were able to write down the "secret family recipe" and make them ourselves!
I am a big believer that when you are taught to make something, the best way to LEARN is to make it by yourself soon after you have the lesson. That way you not only get the instruction, but the understanding as well. Last year we helped at the main event of family tamale making, and then Mom and I came home and made another 84 by ourselves. The one thing I did wrong last year that I have rectified this year is that I did not write down what we did. Aunt Mary is very good at doing that, and this year I had some problems because I DIDN'T do it. That's how you learn! :P
Anyway, back to this year's prep. So I cut the strings with the cool tamale string jig Uncle Don gave me last year, and the roll of string he gave me. That way, all the strings come out the right length, and the strings are very strong! They wouldn't be the same without the right kind of string! I have to be honest - I have been waiting all year to use my cool jig! :)
So, I cut enough strings for 8 dozen tamales. You have to cut 2 strings for each tamale, so I did 8 bundles of 24 strings. Then I started cutting the meat...
Ok, so I remembered from last year that the meat take a while to cut. You have to cut it very small, so it takes awhile. I just forgot HOW long, and how truly sore it makes your wrist and fingers. I had about 8 pounds of meat to cut, and since we got pork shoulder this year instead of pork butt, I had to spend a little additional time cutting the meat off the bone. But when I was done, that bone was CLEAN!
I started cutting at 8pm the night before we made the tamales... I crawled into bed for a few hours of sleep at 6am the next morning. Ugh. I HATE staying up all night, but it had to be done! I will have to remember next time to start earlier in the day!
The next day, mom cooked the meat and added the sauce. We ended up making twice the sauce we needed last year, so it saved time not having to make the sauce this year. We just had to defrost it! We had also (the day before) picked up the wrappers and the maza. It's better to pre-order, so you are sure you can get what you need!
So, after dinner yesterday we put the assembly line together, and got to work! This year Mom and I were lucky enough to have Shannon help us, so the actual assembly line took less time.
In order to be "official tamale makers," you have to wear a bandana to keep your hair back, and aprons. Here is Mom, me and Shannon right before we began! We started assembly at 8pm, and were done a little before Midnight. The long part at this stage of the process is cooking them. Uncle Don showed us that pressure cooking instead of just steaming makes the process go twice as fast so Mom and Dad bought a pressure cooker last year and we used that. Dad has been in charge of the cooker, but since we started so late, he went to bed after the first few batches and I finished up. I pulled the last batch of tamales out of the cooker around 3am.
We ended up making 101 tamales! The first couple dozen had a bit of a problem though... I mean, they taste good and everything, but they weren't sliding out of the wrapper very well. I figured out that the problem was 100% my fault. I was scared about not having enough maza, and I ended up skimping on the first few dozen. The problem with that is that when they come out of the pressure cooker, they are a little on the flat side...
That is one sad looking tamale. I take complete responsibility for the mess up. It's another reason I decided to write everything down! Next year I will have a written record to remind me of the maza fiasco. Oy. Mom steamed a couple of the flatest ones for dinner tonight and she said they slid out of the wrappers well, so maybe the second steaming is needed to make them come out of the wrapper correctly, but that doesn't help the flatness. I'm dumb. On the plus side, we made an additional 17 tamales more than last year, so the people who eat the flat ones can have two for every one that other people have...
Now our house smells of tamales. It's another of the great smells of Christmas! Pine trees, cinnamon, cloves, peppermint, and tamales! :)
Of course, Hippie did not want to be left out of the tamale making process, so here is my Ace Reporter - bandana and all - showing the cooling tamales.
In this picture, he is inspecting them. I told him not to get to close, but you can kind of the see the visions of forks in his eyes... Let's hope he didn't leave any drool behind...
In this picture, he is inspecting them. I told him not to get to close, but you can kind of the see the visions of forks in his eyes... Let's hope he didn't leave any drool behind...
That's it for tamale making 2008! Aunt Mary, Uncle Don and Pama have decided to retire from the tamale making process, and have handed over the torch to my cousins Maggie and Victor. Since I know how to make them now myself, I will probably be part of the mix, if I am not at school when they decide to make them next year. Either that, or I will get to make twice as many and share with two households. That's fine too! It just means that meat cutting might take two days instead of one! :)