Tamales

2 minute read

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I love tamales. There’s something about that is reminiscent of Vietnamese dishes, wrapped in banana leaves. The surface texture is slimy due to steamed starch against a water-proof wrapper. The inner texture is soft, sticky, and chewy. The smell is fragrant of wrapper and lacks Maillard browning.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that tamales are very easy to make. The assembly and cooking was not hard at all. In my opinion, the difficulty of this dish is the filling and flavouring of the masa.

I supposed another skill is maximizing the filling to masa ratio, without it bursting. But this true of any stuffed food item.

Banana leaf vs. corn husks

In the U.S., it’s more common to see tamales wrapped in corn husks. Banana leaves see use in the more southern regions of Mexico and other Latin American countries. The choice of wrappers is one of practicality: use the one that’s readily available and on the cheap. Corn husks and banana leaves are unused byproducts of corn and banana production.

That said, they do impart flavours onto the dough via contact during cooking. I’m very familiar with banana leaf flavour but I wonder if corn husk provides desirable flavours.

Also, banana leaves are less porous and will create a water barrier. You’ll want to consider this and perhaps compensate with a dryer masa dough, lest you end up with soggy product.

Fillings

I think the beauty of tamales is that is a generic platform for many fillings. I used Pork Ragu leftovers and that worked incredibly well.

Probably a good rule of thumb is that you should want to eat the filling on plain mashed potato or boiled dry pasta. i.e. it should be saucy and bold in flavours and textures.

Tamales:

This recipe is for the masa dough. I’ve adapted the recipe from this video on the Simply Mama Cooks channel and the instructions for using banana leaf from another video.

This is another tamal dough recipe, from Muy Bueno Cookbook

Recipe

Ingredient Baker’s Percentage (%) Amount for one batch (g)
Masa harina 100 150
Lard 50 75
Water 166 250
Baking Powder 2% 3
Salt 1.5 2

~200 g of banana leaves

Ingredient Notes

  • Start with 220g of water and adjust for consistency.
  • More water makes a batter that is easier to spread but takes longer to cook.
  • Use any flavourful saturated fat. Tallow or butter will work.
  • Substitute water for stock. Remember to adjust salt accordingly if stock is seasoned.

Technique

  1. Add all dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well.
  2. Add fat and begin cutting in. Use hands to smush the fat into the flour, until pea sized.
  3. Add water and continue smushing. More smushing will aerate the batter somewhat.
  4. Target consistency is a spreadable paste. Looser than Jif peanut butter, maybe warmed up peanut butter.
  5. It can now be used to smear onto leaves and filled.
  6. Steam in instant pot for 40 minutes.
  7. Tamale is finished when it no longer sticks to the leaf. It will be soft and pliable and will firm up as it cools.

It’s customary to fluff the lard and mixture, so the tamale can be light and fluffy. When I did it by hand, it was still light and tender.