Utensils for Making Chicken Tamales

Series Summary

Tamales are a traditional Native American food that have become synonymous with Mexican and Latin American cooking. A tamal consists of meats, cheeses and chilis combined with corn meal dough and wrapped in a corn husk to be steamed. Tamales were originally meant to be portable food rations in the ancient Americas and can be quite varied in ingredients. Today, tamales are served in many Mexican food restaurants, and by street vendors in Mexico, and are popular Christmas meals in the south western United States.

In this free video series, our expert will teach you how to make traditional chicken tamales with a family recipe. Get easy to follow step-by-step instructions for preparing the chicken, making the masa mix and prepping the corn husks. Learn two ways of putting the ingredients into the corn husk and then get tips on how to steam cook your tamales. If you love Mexican food but are looking for something different than the same old burrito, let our expert show you how to make delicious tamales.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Yessenia and I'm here with my mother Sanjuana. On behalf of Expert Village, we are going to show you how to make authentic Mexican tamales. We're going to show you what are the tools that you need to use to be able to make your tamales. We have some measuring spoons that you can use for the different condiments. You can use a spoon such as this one to spread out the masa once we have it mixed. You can use a container such as this one, a plastic container, where you will put the cornhusks. We'll talk about them more. You can also use a pot like this one. Do notice this is a thicker type. If you use something similar to this, you will be able to cook your tamales without the use of a steamer. If you don't have the same type of thickness on the pot that you're using, then use a capacity steamer. Make sure that you also cover the tamales with this towel once you have them ready."