corn husk

Tamale is a classical Central American dish that is a steamed dough made from soft cornmeal and wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaf, filled with a variety of delicious fillings. The leaf that is wrapped around the tamale is thrown away before eating and after the tamale is unwrapped.
It is attractive to serve tamales to guests and let each one unwraps their tamale.

Fillings can be different meats, beef, pork, and chicken are some of the most common fillings for tamales. In addition, tamales with fillings such as fish, cheese, chocolate, etc. are also prepared.

It is believed that the making of tamales dates back to 10,000 years ago, but according to archaeological findings, it could be concluded that similar food was prepared at least 2,000 years ago in the territory of present-day Mexico and Guatemala.

Making tamales is a fun and interesting activity. If you want to surprise your guests or family with this unexpected food, you can get corn husks to wrap tamales in this online store in Estonia. https://www.cachina.eu/et/collections/all. It is a reliable webshop from which I have ordered many times. Orders are filled correctly and very quickly, and there are only praiseworthy words to say about it. From this website, it is possible to order and at a good price a variety of dried chili pods, from which to make chili paste for tamales.

Preparation time: 2.5 hours preparation, 1.5 hours baking
Level: rather more complex
Quantity: for four

Ingredients:
Meat filling:
800 g of pork tenderloin
1 large onion
1 bay leaf
4 medium garlic cloves
0.5 teaspoon of oregano
0.5 tsp cumin seeds
Salt and black pepper to taste
For chili paste I used 4 dried guajillo and pasilla chili pods soaked in water overnight
Cooking oil for browning

Dough:
250 g Masa Harina corn flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
100 g of lard at room temperature
10-15 dried corn husks
0.5 teaspoon of sea salt
About 50 ml of chili paste

Preparation:

1. Remove the seeds from the dried chili pods and pour warm water over them and leave them to soak overnight.
2. Pour water over the cob cover sheets and leave them to soak overnight to make them soft and pliable.
3. Prepare the meat filling. Cut the fillet into slices a few cm long, brown in cooking oil, season with salt and black pepper and add about 100 ml of water and let it simmer.
4. Peel one large onion, cut it into sectors and add to the meat, also cut the garlic cloves into slices and add to the meat to stew. Season with oregano and cumin. Simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours.
5. Make the chili paste. To do this, pour the chili pods and about 200 ml of the water in which the chilies were soaked into the food processor. Crush the mixture until smooth. The paste turns dark red and smells good.
6. When the meat is simmered and the water starts to evaporate, tear the meat into pieces with a fork, add the dill paste, and season the meat with salt and black pepper if necessary.
7. Make the dough for the tamales. To do this, mix water, salt, lard and baking powder, and salt into the cornmeal. Mix the dough until smooth. The consistency of the dough must be good so that the dough can be smeared on the corn cob, but it must not be runny.
8. To make tamales, take one cover sheet of corn husk, spread the dough on it in a layer about 0.5 cm thick, place the meat in the middle of the dough and roll the corn cob so that the meat remains inside the dough and fold the lower end of the cover sheet closing the lower part of the tamale
9. Wrap all the tamales in leaves like this. Once this is done, place the finished tamales in a cooking pot with a sieve placed in the bottom. I used a wooden steaming basket used in Chinese cuisine. Place the tamales upright next to each other and pour water into the pot until the water reaches the neck or the bottom of the steamer basket. Bring the water to a boil and steam the tamales for about one hour.
10. Let the tamales cool for about 10-15 minutes, then they will be easier to unwrap. Open the corn cob wrappers around the tamales. The tamales are ready when the cover sheets can be unrolled from around the cornmeal tamale so that the dough does not stick to the cover sheet.
11. Serve the tamales with guacamole or prepare a Mexican salad for which finely chop one pepper, a handful of cherry tomatoes, red onion, and one large avocado. Mexican red rice also goes well with tamales.
    Ready!!