OHMIGOSH! Can you say, "Time consuming?!!?!" I think the second lesson learned from the Tamale Making experiment is: do NOT make tamales the day OF a special event. I cannot explain the depths of exhaustion I feel today. Making tamales and preparing the house for guests, making the rest of a birthday meal and dessert was just TOO much. In retrospect, I wish I had made the tamales Wed/Thurs or even last week.... Alas, hindsight is 20/20... I hope I remember that for next time. A pictoral tour through the process:
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| masa mixture |
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| smearing masa |
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| husks smeared w/masa |
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| meat added |
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| rolling tamales |
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| rolled tamale |
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| open end |
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| steaming tamales |
Again as I expected, tamale making washing DIFFICULT it was just a LENGTHY process. Lessons learned from the final step,
making the tamales:
*count out corn husks and don't even waste time soaking the tiny ones you won't really use
corn husks soaking
*LESS meat!!!! that recipe I used called for WAY too much meat! I used the amount they said, and I had to double the masa quantity and I still had so much left over that we are planning a meal of barbeque using the meat, AFTER using it on tacos at our fiesta. There was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much meat!!!!!
meat left near end of 2nd batch of masa
*the corn husks MUST dry off before you try to spread the masa mixture on them or the masa won't stick
corn husks drying off
*an assembly line (I drafted my boys) works nicely and REALLY speeds things up
my assembly line workers
*it wasn't really highlighted in the directions, but COOLING OFF is a VITAL step; if you try to eat them to soon they are wet and icky
The tamales were YUMMY. We had them for dinner, I left about 20 in the fridge for leftovers, and froze about 3 dozen too! I will DEFINITELY do it again; however, much wiser from the battle.
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