Homemade Pork Tamales

Hola, I'm Daisy Martinez for eHow.com, and today we're making tamales. Ole! Tamales are known all over Latin America, sometimes even by different names. In Puerto Rico, we call them pasteles, and instead of using a corn base for the masa, we use all of these different root vegetables: green bananas, plantains, et cetera. But today, we're going to be making the traditional Mexican tamale. Okay, so we're going to start out with a bone-in pork shoulder, and what I like to do is take the bone out, throw it in the oven so it gets nice and brown and caramelized while the meat is poaching. Once the bone is nice and brown, I put it in the broth with the meat and lots of cilantro, some onion; notice I left the skin on, it adds flavor; and some black peppercorn. You want to poach that gently for about two to three hours until the pork is so soft that it just, it shreds easily, just like this. Once I have my pork shredded, I'm going to add some sofrito to my achiote oil. You can look for the recipes for achiote oil and sofrito at eHow.com. And to that, I'm going to add a little bit of cumin, ground cumin, some allspice, some ground allspice, and some cloves. This is really going to be super delicious. And, when I was developing this recipe, I actually had a friend of mine who's Mexican come over and taste the tamales. And I said, "Francisca, what do you think?" And her eyes filled up, and she said, "This tastes just like my mother used to make." And I was like, "This recipe is a keeper." Okay, so we're doing that over hight heat, just so the flavors come together. A little bit of salt. We don't need any pepper because we poached, there's plenty of black pepper from the poaching liquid. And speaking of poaching liquid, add just a little drop, just to get things going. My mouth is watering because I'm smelling the shredded pork. Absolutely delicious. Okay. So once we have the meat ready, we're going to move on over here, and the assembly is going to start. We're going to make, we're going to start out with our corn masa. You get the Masarica. It used to be used, take the corn and dry it and treat it with lye. But this is like an instant version of that, so it takes 90 percent of the work away. Okay, so we have our Maseca. I have my ground cumin, and I have some dried chili powder. You know what I love is, today, that you can buy chili powder. They used to have that generic brand of chili powder. Now you can get particular chilies. You can get ancho chili powder, chipotle chili powder. Any kind of chili, pasilla, guajillo, whatever you want, and that will change the flavor subtly. But, we're going to go ahead and add that to our masa. And salt, of course. And then, to that, I'm going to add two cups of the broth from the pork that we just finished cooking, and about a half a cup to a cup of oil. Now, you can use vegetable oil, olive oil, whatever your fancy. And then we're going to go ahead and mix that. A lot of time, you'll go to some place to have tamales commercially, and you'll come upon a tamale that is dry and hard, and I just don't find the pleasure in that. I love to eat my tamales the way that my mother makes pasteles, which are like soft and creamy. So, I erred on the side of that when making my masa. And as a result of that, people who don't really care for tamales, strange as that may seem, actually have said to me, "Wow. You know, usually tamales are not on my wish list when it comes to dining out, but these are amazing." And you can see, as I'm stirring, the batter is actually getting tighter and tighter. You let it sit a couple of minutes and it will tighten up ever more. We have our masa all ready. You can see how beautiful that is, and we have our meat that we seasoned with the sofrito and the achiote oil, the warm spices and all of that deliciousness. And then we have our tamale leaves. These come dry, like this. They're papery and husky and dry and crackly. So, what you want to do is you want to reconstitute them in hot water for a minimum of 30 minutes, so that they're nice and pliable, like this, because that's what we're going to cook our tamales in. We're going ahead, three-quarters of the way down the leaf, we're going to take our masa, and then I'm going to add the meat right down the center. And, using the leaves, you manipulate the masa such that it's covered, and then you take the tip, the bottom tip. Can you see this? Of the leaf, where there's no masa, you're going to fold it back, and that's going to actually cause the seal that's going to keep the masa in there. And then, because these, these leaves are absolutely spectacular, we're just going to cut the tips off. Shall I make another one? I think so. In Latin America, you have these big, huge pots called tamaleras, you know? But don't not make this recipe because you don't have a tamalera. You can use one of these bamboo steamers. They work really, really well, and you can find these practically anywhere. One of the great things that I love about making tamales is that tamales in Latin America is really a familial, or a community event. Like, as in Puerto Rico, when we make pasteles, everybody gets in, from the youngest to the oldest, and it really becomes a social encounter, actually. You're not cooking by yourself. Like in Puerto Rico, everybody gets known for their strengths. Every year, someone is in charge of the meat. The other person is in charge of the spices. Another person is in charge of making the masa. Everybody gets in charge of wrapping. Okay. And so, I have some steaming water in my bamboo steamer. I'm going to go ahead and tuck these babies in there. Just make sure, the bottom flip that you flipped over, that lays down, because that's going to keep the tamale safe. And in 45 minutes, we're going to have absolutely yummy delicious rico tamales. Be back then. Well, that moment has arrived, the great unveiling, the great tamale unveiling. Let's see if all of our efforts paid off. Wonderful. You're just going to touch to see. It should have a little give, but push back. These absolutely feel wonderful. Let's see what we've got here. Oh my goodness. This is going to be great. And I'm just going to fold back the leaf, just like this. Let's flip this over. Oh, my mouth is watering. So delicious. Look at these tamales. They look absolutely beautiful. I'm Daisy Martinez for eHow.com, and we are rocking some tamales. Buen provecho!