How to Cook Pork Tamale
Makes: 16
Preparation time (mins): 35
Cooking time (mins): 180
Ingredients needed to make pork tamale:
For the tamale dough:
- 2 cups masa harina
- 1 tsp beef broth
- 8 oz corn husks, soaked in warm water
- 10 oz beef broth
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2/3 cup lard
- ½ tsp salt
For the tamale filling:
- 1 ¼ lb pork loin
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 large onion, halved
- 4 California chile pods, dried
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- 2 cups water
Cooking instructions for pork tamale:
- Place the meat in a Dutch oven, along with onion as well as garlic and submerge in water.
- Heat the mixture until it starts boiling and lower the heat to simmer it over slow flame for a couple of hours or until the meat is cooked down.
- Slice off the stems of the chile pods and do away with the seeds. Make a point to wear rubber gloves while doing so, otherwise your hands will start burning.
- Pour a couple of cups of water into a saucepan and plop in the chiles.
- Simmer them for about 20 minutes and then turn off the heat to let it cool.
- Add the chiles and some of the cooking liquid to a blender and pulse them into a smooth puree.
- Pass the mixture through a fine wire mesh to strain and stir in a dash of salt; set aside.
- Pull the pork with your fingers into fine shreds and empty a cup of prepared chile sauce over it; toss well to mix and set aside.
- To make the dough, whisk a tbsp of broth into the lard and continue to do so until the mixture turns fluffy.
- Stir in the masa harina, adequate amount of salt as well as baking powder and pour in the whisked lard mixture.
- Combine them together into a spongy dough; you can add more broth if necessary.
- Split the dough into several parts and place each of them on the corn husks.
- Spread them evenly across the husk until the layer is about ½’’- ¼ ‘’ thick.
- Place a heaping tbsp of the tamale filling at the centre of each dough and wrap one side of the husk over other, so that they overlap. Tie it up together with a string so that it doesn’t open while cooking.
- Make rest of the tamales similarly and arrange them in a steamer.
- Cook them for an hour and remove from heat.
- Unwrap and spoon rest of the chili sauce over each of them.
- Add a dollop of sour cream on top and serve hot.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
