Cooking the pork and chicken filing for homemade tamales

Friday, February 4, 2005 I got up and realized that I didn't have to go to work. Yessss! So today was the day to start on our long-planned Superbowl 39 feast, and the centerpiece of our feast was to be homemade tamales. Now I've made homemade tamales many times before, but I've never documented what I did, or the ingredients that I've used, as I've just use my grandmother's method: Watch what I do and next time do as I have done. However, today was a "running around" day as I had to purchase the ingredients that would ultimately provide our feast.

The first stop was our local Mexican grocery store. Well, not really local, as the place is about a 20-minute drive when you factor in the sometimes-horrendous traffic that the Sacramento region experiences. At the mercado, I purchased 5 lbs of pre-made masa dough for the tamales, 5-dozen corn husks, 1 lb of dried pasilla chili peppers and 1 lb tomatillos.

Then, it was off to the local supermarket to purchase the rest of the ingredients. I won't list everything, but we did purchase several avocados, four pounds of boneless pork, and a 4-pound chicken.

After I got home, it was time to prepare the meat. I placed the pork and chicken in a large stockpot, added water, turned on the heat and brought it to a boil. For flavor, I added a diced onion, an Anaheim chili pepper, several cloves of garlic and some cut-up celery. I let the mixture boil for a couple of minutes, reduced heat to low, and let the whole thing simmer for about 4 hours.

When I removed the meat from the pot, the meat smelled delicious! I couldn't resist a nibble or two, and it tasted delicious! The meat was good enough to eat just as it was. Keep in mind that adding the vegetables really added the delicious, earthy flavor. I saved the broth to mix with the tamale masa and to provide stock for the tamale sauce.

Photo: Chicken, pork and vegetables simmer on the range. Note the vegetables added to the pot for extra flavor.

Adding the vegetables, especially the celery, enhances the flavor of the meat. In fact, I can't even describe the difference the veggies make. My advice: Just do it!

As I mentioned before, this article was compiled over a three day period, but it doesn't have to work that way if you have purchased all of the ingredients in advance. If you're hosting a tamale party, you might want to get the meat cooked before your guests arrive, but after that, it's just a simple matter of making the filling and the sauce, filling the tamales, and steaming them. It's fun, easy and a great source for entertainment for your guests. If there are children present, the "ohhh and aweee" factor will be high!

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