The Tamale Ladies!

What a fun experience!  I've always wanted to learn how to make tamales, and I was so excited and looking forward to great friends coming over to teach me how to make them "the right way".

It took five of us about 5 hours to make almost 12 dozen of them. Half beef, half pork, and all delicious!
The tamale makers came prepared.  They came with the two meats already cooked and chopped, and all the necessary equipment I didn't have.  That included a few beautiful clay bowls that have been in their family for generations, 2 large steamer pots, lots of ingredients, and one magic spoon!!

I'm going to summarize the steps here with no promise that I've remembered everything!  Warning: don't attempt to make these by using what I have documented here!  I'm smiling as I say that.... my goal here is just to share some of what went on.  There's no way I could actually instruct anyone how to make tamales at this point.  But one of these days..... maybe!!!

The beautiful bowls, which were used to cook the meat and spices together on the cooktop.

To begin this process, since the meat was already cooked, which saved us time, the next step was to prepare the corn husks and dried chiles by soaking them in warm water to soften.  The corn husks needed to soak for about 2 hours, so I started this process before the Tamale Ladies arrived!

These are the chiles that were also soaked to soften.

While that was happening, one person began mixing masa, baking powder, salt, and lard to make the dough that's spread onto the corn husks by adding water gradually until it reached the perfect consistency.  These ladies don't measure anything, they've been making tamales for decades, so observation was key here!!  It's a good thing I took plenty of pictures to refer back to, and it's a good thing they're going to write the directions down for me.  There's NO WAY I could possibly remember all this stuff!!

While the masa mixture was being made, the ingredients that flavor the meats had to be prepared also.  Into the beautiful bowls went some vegetable oil and some garlic, cloves, and black peppercorns. The spices and garlic were added to the bowl after they were crushed and blended together.  The spice mixture simmered for a few minutes before the cooked meat was added to the bowl, then the meat simmered for a few minutes before the softened chiles were placed in the blender with some warm water and pulverized into liquid form.  They were then added to the meat mixture by pressing through a strainer to prevent the skins from going into the meat mixture.  That's all that was done to the meats.  After that, they were just simmered and stirred every now and then.  

Crushing the spices.

Blending the spices.

 The vegetable oil in the bowl to which the spice mixture was added.

Adding the cooked meat to the spice mixture in the bowl. I forgot to take a picture of the chiles being added, but that's what happened next. 


The chiles about to be blended and liquified with warm water, then added to the meat mixture.

 Everyone is busy here! Spreading the masa mixture onto the corn husks and then adding the meat mixture, rolling them up, and placing them into one of the big steamer pots. This is a group effort!

This may look simple, but it takes practice to get the dough mixture onto that corn husk smoothly and evenly!

Water is added to the bottom of the pot, then a rack is placed over it and then the pot is filled with tamales.  

Once the pot is full, corn husks are placed over the top to help retain moisture.

Over the corn husks, a plastic bag is placed - another way to keep the steam in. 

The tamales steamed for about an hour and 45 minutes before checking them for doneness.

After they were all finished, they were removed from the pot and placed into big containers to cool before packaging them up.  They freeze well.  We kept some out to enjoy and froze the rest.

People who make tamales have their own way of doing it, and there are many ways, with different meats and ingredients.  The Tamale Ladies showed me how their family has always done it, and I enjoyed every minute of watching, helping when possible, and listening to them talk about their family tamale stories.

This was a really fun day.  Not only did I learn plenty about how tamales are made, but I also had a great time with some lovely ladies and I have lots of utterly delicious tamales to enjoy!  Lucky me!!!