Lessons of Masa
I’m sad. My camera broke. Totally, completely and unfixable. That camera has been through a lot with me. We got it right before vacation one year. Some of its first pictures included killer whales at Seaworld and kids playing on the beach at Galveston. That was just about forever ago.
And recently its what I’ve used for all my food photos. Family reactions to this latest adventure have ranged from enthusiastic and helping me style the food to mildly amused and/or impatient depending on level of hunger.
But, alas, the time has come for me to part ways with my old trusty camera. Its been good to me. But it got dropped by people who will remain nameless (though they know who they are!). So I’ll have to find the money to get a new one. And then figure out which one to get. And then second-guess the one I do get. Sigh.
So now you know the reason that I didn’t begin this post with a photo of a stack of homemade tamales. Corn husks stuffed with masa and filling and cutely tied on the ends with thin strips of husks. Plump tamales, piping hot right out of the steamer, served with a delicious and unusual cabbage, chile and pineapple salad on the side.
I have wanted to learn to make tamales for a long time. When we owned our business in Fort Worth, we would occasionally need to bring in temp workers to help out with some of the work that had to be done by hand, and our favorite workers were a group of 4-6 Mexican women. They were the best! They were cheerful, quick and accurate. And Mama made incredible tamales that she would bring in for everyone to have for lunch. I miss Mama’s tamales.
I’ve floated the idea of making my own a couple of times to Farmer Paul, but he has always steered me away, convincing me there’s more to it than just a recipe. So a couple of weeks ago in the food section of the paper, there was a link to cooking classes and one of the options was a tamale class in Seattle. And I decided that the time had come, the time was now, it was time to go-go-go learn tamales now. (Sorry…Dr. Seuss snuck in for a moment)
Anna played the part of the loving sister and accompanied me so I wouldn’t be along, and after work yesterday, in the driving rain, we headed to Seattle and the cooking class to learn the secrets of tamales.
I’m not going to post the school’s recipe for tamales, but really…there are recipes for it all over the internet. The secrets of tamales as they were revealed to us, however, are as follows:
- Use real butter or (preferrably) lard and beat it in the mixer until it is very light and fluffy.
- Let the corn husk do the work. Put the masa dough in the husk and, using the husk, roll it back and forth, letting the dough work itself into the proper shape.
- Don’t put too much filling in. Just a tablespoon will do it.
And that’s about it! I’m going to try to make them myself very soon, and I’ll find a way to take pictures when I do. In class we made two versions. One had corn and pablanos mixed in with the masa but no filling; the other had a chicken and chorizo filling. I thought they were both good, but not great.
MINE will be great. Just you wait and see!
Tags: dinner
Tidbits | greengrassliving | 
October 7, 2008 10:25 am
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