When Mely Martínez first moved to the U.S. in 1991, she was struck by the way the food of her native Mexico was represented in restaurants. It didn’t taste or look like the food she spent her whole life cooking and eating. Enchiladas encased in electric yellow cheese? She was far from home.
She also began to realize that many of the children of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. were unfamiliar with traditional recipes found in the home kitchens across Mexico. She thought of her son and hoped that he and those like him would one day be able to carry on these food traditions, so the former school teacher went back into educator mode.
“We’re very proud of our heritage, and I wanted to share that with people, especially children of Mexican immigrants, because someday they’ll want to know where they come from,” she says.
Using the accessibility of the blogging sphere, Martínez began to write about everything she knew about home-style Mexican cooking, weaving in important historical context and motherly conversational guidance. She has shared recipes on her popular blog, Mexico in My Kitchen, since 2008, and her first cookbook, The Mexican Home Kitchen, was released in September with much praise.
“It is a gift for all the immigrants who miss home, who miss the food of their moms and their grandmothers,” Martínez says of her first book. “It was something that I wanted for immigrants like myself.”
One of the food traditions Martínez is keen on sharing is Christmas tamales. The first Christmas she spent in the U.S. was strange and unfamiliar, but making authentic handmade pork tamales like the ones she ate in her family’s kitchen made it feel like the holidays.
It’s tradition for many Mexican families to divide the labor required of making tamales and turn the assembly process into a family affair to celebrate Las Posadas, or Posadas as it is often called. Posadas is typically celebrated in the nine days leading up to Christmas and originated as a commemoration of the Biblical story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem.
“Some of the most frequent meals that you’re going to find during this time are tamale — pork and chicken tamales — and also sweet tamales,” Martínez says.
The pork tamale recipe Martínez uses, which is included in her cookbook, was shared with her years ago by a woman from the Coahuila city of Monclova who would make and sell tamales to her neighbors every weekend.
Pork shoulder is boiled with aromatics until falling apart, and then simmered in a fragrant pepper sauce before being nestled into masa harina dough flavored with pork broth and lard.
The tamales are time consuming to make but well worth the effort, especially if prepared in bulk and made with family. But for those taking tamales on as a solo venture this year, Martínez recommends making the pork filling one day and tackling the dough and assembly the next day.
Tamales de Puerco
For the meat:
1 pound of pork shoulder, cut into cubes
2 garlic cloves
¼ of a white onion
1 bay leaf
4 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
For the sauce:
2 dried Ancho peppers, cleaned, deveined, and seeded
3 dried Guajillo peppers, cleaned, deveined, and seeded
2 small garlic cloves
1/3 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Salt and black pepper to season
For the dough:
1 1/3 cups lard
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups of corn flour (masa harina)
2 1/2 cups of the broth you cooked the meat in
Salt, if needed (the broth already has salt added)
16 large corn husks, plus more for adding to the steaming pot
In a medium-size pot, combine the pork, garlic, onion, bay leaf, and salt. Cover with the water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. Simmer partially covered, occasionally skimming off and discarding the fat from the surface. Cook for about 1 hour, or until meat is tender enough to shred. Remove the onion, garlic, and bay leaf from the pot and discard. When the meat is cool enough to handle, shred it into bite-sized pieces and set aside.
While the meat is cooking, make the sauce: Soak the dry peppers in a medium-size pot with warm water for about 20 minutes. Drain the peppers and place them in your blender along with the garlic cloves, cumin, and 1/3 cup of water (some people use the soaking water). Process until you have a smooth sauce.
Heat the vegetable oil in a medium-size skillet over medium heat, then add the pepper sauce with 1 cup of the meat broth and cook for 8 minutes.
Add the shredded pork to the sauce and season with salt and ground black pepper. Add more broth if needed. Simmer until heated through, about 5 more minutes.
Place the corn husks into a large bowl with warm water to soak for about 30 minutes. After this time, remove the husks, drain any excess water, and set aside.
To prepare the dough, beat the lard in a large bowl until it is light in color and slightly fluffy. You can do this by hand or using an electric mixer. Add the baking powder and the corn flour (masa harina), then gradually add the pork broth until the dough is very light. If your dough looks dry, add more broth or water. Taste and add salt if needed.
Continue to beat until the dough is well combined, light, and smooth. To make sure your dough is light enough, place a small amount in a glass of water. If it floats, then that means that it’s ready.
To assemble the tamales, place a small amount of the dough in the center of a corn husk. Using the back of a spoon, spread the dough out and top it with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the meat filling.
Fold the right and left sides of the corn husk in towards the center, overlapping and completely covering the dough and the filling, then fold up the narrow end of the husk toward the center.
Add enough water to your steaming pot so that it almost reaches the steam rack. Line the steam rack with corn husks, then place the tamales standing up in the pot. Cover them with a layer of corn husks and cook for 1 hour. During that time, add more water to the steamer if needed. To check if your tamales are ready, remove one tamal from the pot, wait 5 minutes, then open it. If the husk separates easily from the dough when you open it, then the tamales are ready. If the dough sticks to the husk, then place it back into the pot and cook for 15 more minutes. Serve the tamales while still hot, just let them rest for 5 minutes first so that the dough can firm up.
Notes:
If you have to add more water to the pot when cooking, make sure to pour it as close to the wall of the pot as possible, avoiding the tamales. If water gets into the tamales, they will lose their flavor and the dough will be soggy.
You can reheat the tamales in the microwave for 1 minute per tamal. You can also steam them again to warm them up. Yet another way to reheat them is to place them on a hot skillet with the cornhusk still on. The cornhusk will start roasting, and this will add an extra smoky flavor to the tamal. Turn them 2 or 3 times until warm.
The tamales will keep well in your freezer for a couple of months.
Not everyone has a special steamer for tamales (called a Tamalera), but you can improvise one by using one of several methods. You can crumble up some aluminum foil and place it at the bottom of the pot, then cover it with cornhusks and place the tamales on top. You can also grab a disposable aluminum pie dish and cut some holes in it with a knife, then place it upside-down in the pot to use as a steaming rack.
