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Superbowl Sunday, February 6, 2005; I was up early in anticipation of the big event. Since almost everything was already made, it was just a matter of putting it all together. Or was it? The first thing I did was to mix chicken broth into the masa dough, to formulate a consistency of peanut butter. That's about what the mixture should be for tamale making, according to Tom, a friend of ours and a very experienced tamale maker.
Left: Sharlene spoons shredded pork and pre-made salsa roja onto corn husks, already coated by me with the masa mixture. Right: Sharlene is starting making chicken tamales, using the salsa verde. Then it was teamwork time, as I spooned the masa onto the hojas, better known as waterlogged corn husks, flattened it and put meat and sauce onto the masa. Then, Sharlene rolled the tamales up into the appropriate form, and tied them together. Sharlene and I worked as a tamale tag-team, and everything went well, using the assembly line method.
Left: Masa dough, shredded pork filling and salsa roja have been placed on the husks, and all that's left to do is to roll them and tie them up with a piece of corn husk. Right: Tamales placed in the stockpot, ready for steaming. Note that the "open" end is placed up, so the contents can't drain out during steaming. When all of the four dozen tamales were wrapped and tied, it was time to steam them. We had a stockpot with boiling water ready, so it was a simple matter of putting the tamales on a rack, to keep them out of the water, and steaming them. After a couple of hours steaming, the tamales were ready to remove from the pot, and were essencially ready to eat. Naturally, you'll want to eat a few of them, but the remainder will freeze well, so you can enjoy your tamales in the weeks to come.e
Left: Two dozen pork tamales, fresh from the pot, ready to enjoy. Right: Grilling a quesadilla on a comal, as a side dish. All of this work just for Sharlene and I? Sure! I just wanted to see if I could do it. We now have several months worth of tamales in our freezer. Was the food good? No, it was out of this world!
Photo: The finished product includes guacamole, buffalo wings, quesadilla and two kinds of tamales. Not shown are the salsa cruda and tortilla chips. Next year, it will be Superbowl XXXX and we'll have even more reason to celebrate. So if you want some good food to eat, check out our recipes. Go Patriots!
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