i made tamales

Welcome everyone today we're going to cook some things I guess we're going to try, you know, there's this level of excitement when I have an idea of ​​something I want to try to cook and I'm gathering the ingredients and I'm running around town, I'm researching different recipes and then every time I stand here and I'm ready to cook it, I think I can't do this, I absolutely can't do this, I'm looking. all these ingredients I have never cooked with most of them all the excitement that I had before or it came back please maybe at some point potentially at the end of this recipe I will feel that excitement again and I hope I can do it because I really wanted to make my best try and make some

tamales

and this is a very similar food to posole which is very special to a lot of people and I don't want to do it and I'm afraid to do it but all I can do is the best I can just do some research take some ingredients and turn on the flame and here we go, so without further ado, we will do our best to make it for you, we have a lot of work ahead of us. for us here, but the pot of gold at the end of this murky rainbow that I cook in is potentially a delicious tamale, so join me as we try to make some beautiful and wonderful

tamales

in my kitchen.

I'm very nervous, take my hand please. nervous, okay, take a deep breath and let's get started Kermit Kermit just coughed hey, are you ready to make tamales? Have you ever had tamales? You can help? It smells unpleasant. Well, I've done my best to try to put together a general guide on how to do it. make tamales no matter what you put in them, obviously most of the recipes I found were pork tamales and most of the recipe focuses on the pork and how to prepare it, cook it, flavor it and tenderize it, and since If we don't, it gives us a chance to focus on the tamales part, which is very new to me, so the first thing I've never cooked that I'm excited to try is these corn husks that you're going I'm going to want to get some dried corn husks and the first thing we're going to do with these beautiful corn husks that also smell pretty good is we're going to put them in a pot of warm water, not boiling, not very hot, not cold, just warm. and we're going to let them soften a little bit while we prepare the rest of the recipe so that they are pliable to fold and fit the filling inside and then, you know, fold it after, so let's count them.

I have about one two three four five six seven that's enough, that's enough, so I'm going to put them in the pot here and hopefully we can submerge them all completely. I'm actually going to put the steam rack on top so that it's pressing down on the shells so they stay submerged and therefore soften completely. First we are going to prepare the main ingredient, which is the dough, which will be a mixture of ground dough, which is corn flour, and then a little. corn flour there are many different ways to do this. I have seen people grind dried corn kernels.

I've seen people have a pre-

made

product that you can buy at the store. I think it's from the same company that makes just the dough. different ways so I decided I'm going to use my corn flour that I got from my corn tortilla recipes and everything that I

made

and I'm going to mix it with some corn flour yeah that's right. think and that will be kind of the flour base for the masa and the tamales and then we'll add all the other ingredients that you can customize again however you want. I've seen people put in chopped vegetables, beans as well as whole beans. within the mixture you can do it in any way.

I'm going to shamelessly make the simpler white boy version of this just because I don't want to overwhelm myself and I want to get out of this alive, so I'm going to make a nice basic version of tamales but I'm going to add a little cheese and I'm going to put a little of sauce but the first step is to take our dough flour and a lot of the recipes I saw didn't give me any measurements, you know? I really like that, no, I'm talking about we're flying without measuring cups today and then some cornmeal. I think why I'm hesitating with above.

Ok, no, this is good. I saw recipes that use this, so here we go. I'll also add a little more cornmeal and if I'm doing something wrong, please don't yell at me. I'm sorry in advance. I'm going to mix up these little dry ingredients that we're going to mix together. maybe like half a teaspoon of baking powder in order not to measure, we'll just sprinkle it on and a little bit of salt, you'll be able to flavor this a little bit later right before we add this mixture to our corn. peels, so don't fumble too much with the salt measurements from the beginning, just add a little now.

What we're going to do is take some of these cubed chicken, not chicken, and we're going to dissolve them. I'm going to put them in a little bit of boiling water, so I'll do that and then in a second I'll have some impromptu chicken broth to pour in here, so BRB, one second, I'll clap my hands and then I'll come back with some broth, will you? OK? I'm back, so I just melted these previously solid portions of coconut oil and plant-based butter and what this will do is serve as our lard substitute, and in every recipe I looked up it was like you need lard to make Tomales, so the coconut oil will provide the texture and consistency of real lard and the butter spread will serve more as a flavoring for the fat we are going to add and from what I have read, it is important that you have enough amount of fat in this recipe, otherwise it can't get grainy and crumbly and just not have the right flavor, so don't skimp on the fat here, okay, we have to add a little fat, so again, no measurements, We have homemade chicken broth. that's pretty hot I'm going to put a nice spot here okay I'm going to leave these ice cubes oh it's still very hot damn okay we're almost like ice cubes the recipe doesn't say anything about adding a hot liquid and like it's going to mess things up, so I don't want to take any chances.

I'm going to chill this little handmade chicken broth, it tastes like chicken, although now we're going to add a little bit of coconut oil and leave a little bit. in case you have a little bit of butter and let's mix this in now, a little bit of broth and we want a consistency that we can make a kind of porridge so that it's not runny but it's not too dry either. to have a nice little Mashable texture, it looks like we're going to need all the broth, really this dough flour is like a tank right now and it's soaking up all this broth, holy shit, so I'm going to get rid of the spatula and go to get my hands dirty because this is what the recipe says: you are going to grind everything together.

I think it needs to be more humid. I think potentially more oil. I really made sure we didn't skimp on it. I don't mind the oil if I do it, yeah, so it's a little dry. I think you'll want it to stick to your hand at first and then you'll basically mash it until it doesn't stick anymore, so I still think we have a little bit of liquid. I'm just going to add the rest of the broth. I didn't think you'd need all the goodness of tamales that I've enjoyed. You know, this is a food that I've eaten quite a bit growing up, it's not like most of my recipes where I've never tried them before, but tamales are naturally gluten free most of the time so I've enjoyed them for a long time.

I've just never come. close to making mine okay this is more of the consistency we're looking for here it's like a little bit like a wet paste you want it to be sticky if you wanted to put your hand on it yeah this is what we want yeah , from the recipes I saw in the videos I watched, people were getting their hands dirty, so we're onto something, just make sure your bowl makes a lot of noise. You can also do this slap test where you slap the mixture and if you slap it afterwards and make sure it sticks to your hand then you are good to go but if it doesn't stick then the mixture has been mashed enough.

If we try to taste a cake, the dough is ready, bad, it doesn't stick, so yes, very quickly. I'm just going to prove why that already tastes so good. Shots of that cabinet that stays open just the way I like it. I'm going to check the corn husks. I feel like the corn husks need a little more time. They are definitely softer, but. I still don't know if they are as soft as we want, so we have this beautiful mixture, this is our dough and it tastes phenomenal. I don't know what it's supposed to taste like at this stage, but I think it's relatively how we want our finished product to taste, well, I'm going to quickly chop this onion here because we're going to use a white onion and some refried beans to make a little bean mixture. that will look good inside the tamale. add a little bit of different texture and flavor so it's not just a mixture of dough and cheese, I also think I have a sauce on top, it doesn't need to have that nice fine mince, almost dice, and we're going to add a little bit of oil plus, I think we'll also do some garlic because no one ever said they didn't like the garlic you put in the recipe unless they were allergic to garlic, in which case that's bad.

Situation that was a bad situation, the oil started to shimmer a little, so we are going to drain the juice from the beans and add some of our refried beans to our pan, wait a minute, if they are refried beans, that means they have been fried . twice and now we're frying them, so they're our spooky fried beans, that's fine, so we're doing pretty much the entire can of beans here, honestly, what are we doing? Let's do everything, you know who is not smart? I should have put the onions in first, but okay, we'll do it, so I'm going to put the onions in here, well, we still have a little bit of oil sizzling, we'll just let this cook, baby, let it do its thing.

We'll pick up in a second. We have reached the point. I'm going to let this bean mixture simmer. Now it is at a very low level. What we're going to do now is take our corn husks and we're going to lay them out to air dry. Actually, this is too small of a platform, but you get the idea that you're going to take them out of the water and let them sit to dry. air dry a little. a little bit, our bean mixture looks good and it's ready, I salt it, I add a little bit of pepper, it's a very basic refried bean accompaniment that we're going to use for flavor, why did I do that?

It's so spicy, it's so spicy. I'm going to set this aside here and we're going to reuse our now we're going to pour this water back in. I found myself on one of these recipes that I really like and I'm trying to write something I like, I can't focus on anything else so if this video crashes I'm sorry, it's only me here anyway so We've got our corn husks here behind us, nice and soft, they're drying on that paper. towel, so we'll have them ready in a moment, but it looks like we're already there, all we have to do now is assemble the tamales and put them on a steam rack, which we'll use like this. like an insert pot that goes inside the larger pot that you can use as a steam rack, so there's already about I don't know three inches of water in there, but I feel like it's time we get ready to do this. we're ready to do it to you we're ready okay here we go let us do it to him forgive me everyone who knows how to do this right I forgive myself for not doing it right okay then oh on the one hand okay these are not They're necessarily dry yet, but we're going to do it anyway, we're going to take some dough and just spread it out, you're supposed to use the spatula I think, but then you're just going to fold it, I think like a book just come close close fold the top and fold the bottom part it looks too thin we need more ok let's try again fold the bottom ok this looks much better so I'm going to turn this upside down here we go Thank you and let's try it again oh, wait, one didn't have beans, okay, that one will be easy, okay, I'm not very smart, so let's take some beans, our pre-refried bean mix, and fold the bottom over and Oops, that one is down too, you have to secure them when you fold them because you don't really understand too much since this is not like a stretchy tortilla or something, yeah, these could be these corn husks. a little lacking in terms of softening, they still feel a little stiff in some areas, but they're working.

I mean, we're doing the work here. I wonder if, when I'm making them, if it's necessary. I don't know how to say this, if the bean mixture has to be inside or can it just be floating on top, as I hope I'm not ruining this, oh and I haven't put cheese on any of these, well, they'll all be different, we'll start adding cheese to some, we won't reopen them, those are already ready, just a small portion of mots and the beans on top, fold, fold, down, up. I really hope I don't screw this up too. bad, we only have a couple more to put together, but I'm going to throw them in the steamer.

What you are going to do is put them in a steamer pot or on a steamer rack. Recipes vary, some say 30 minutes, others say an hour, so we'll go between 30 minutes and an hour and hopefully at the end of all this we'll have some tamales, maybeMaybe not, who knows. Even though you did your best, well, here we have six, okay, apparently okay. Take them, they're all in one piece, they're all very hot, I don't know, I mean, it looks like we're going to stack them, that's what you do right, here we go. Very hot tamales, it doesn't burn my hand at all, as you can see by my serious and completely intact face that doesn't let it faze me, but I think we should try opening one.

What do you believe? I don't have dishes. Well, here we go, this is it. uh, this is our test tamale, it's our test macho, well, from what I can tell, it seems to have the right consistency. I cooked it for about 40 minutes, it's really very good. I thought it was going to be bad, yeah, why is it good? I thought I really can't believe how good this is so this is just the simple recipe and it was also a really humbling recipe even though I had never cooked tamales before I looked at it like I could do that.

I know why it seemed easy to me, but it's not, this is not an easy recipe at all, it's just a simple amazing tomalak goal, but the real guy is going to be the beans and cheese one, so let's try the one this one just made . beans I think it's okay, one is really good, the one with beans adds so much. I imagine if I had made a meat substitute, it's like a tamale flavor is very good on its own, if you want it, you know, simple and basic. flavors that I make, I love this, I could eat them plain all day, but if you are thirsty for spices or go crazy with different flavors or textures, you can put vegetables, you can put whatever you want inside the tamale and it is added.

I'm pretty sure because the beans made this one so much better, that's bomb, okay I have to try one with cheese, very good you know? I think we have to bring Jenna here. Jenna's tamales made tamales like they were neither. because I only made some basic ones that I didn't know how to make any mm-hmm refried beans I fried them and they were already refried what happens over time is just the mixture of dough with a little cheese these ones have cheese these ones don't Oh, you travel with cheese, that's it It's so good. You could do it?

But I didn't make it because it was a very overwhelming process and I needed to just take care of myself a little and not get overwhelmed anymore. Well, they're pretty good. I'm very happy with that. I mean, it really impressed me. This is probably the most common Mexican food I've ever eaten because it's naturally gluten-free and really good. As you say, I think they turned out better than I thought, but I'm still a little disappointed in myself. I was overwhelmed by this one, this one really got me because I didn't want to fail at making the actual food of the tamale. they hold together, the consistency, right, I got so caught up in it and it was a really difficult process, I mean I'm humbled by this one, this kind of beat hit me a little bit, at least we have a tasty treat at the end. even if it doesn't have sauce and it's not as traditional or precise as it could have been, I really tried so I hope you enjoyed watching me and are nice to me in the comments, okay I know I probably did everything wrong but we are here doing our best and next time there will be a next time because as the plant based meat substitute movement goes on, there are a lot of new and amazing meat substitutes and this, with some meat substitute, will be really good, especially if it had some good salsa on it next time I promise I'll deliver it, but for now we're just stuck with some plain old bean and cheese tamales, which I'm not mad about, they're really good and I made tamales, that's exciting, yeah , wait if.

It's still good, I promise you it tastes good here, look, it tastes good here, take a bite, make that cheese, there you go, take a bite, here you go, it's okay, you know how satisfying, not all of them can be home runs, this one doesn't it was necessarily a touch but it was like it was like a base inside the box it could be a mistake we'll accept it thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed it if you made tamales along with me I'd love to see you tweet them on Me and we'll see you next week with hopefully , a less stressful recipe in which you can thrive and excel, maybe a little more.

I think this week the recipe made it for me. I don't think I've done the same thing to the recipe sometimes. you do it to them, sometimes they do it to you, okay, I'm done, I'm done with everything, thanks for watching. Hello again. As soon as I finished filming this episode, I was thinking to myself about how I really did a disservice by not trying to make a salsa or a side because I know tamales almost always have salsa in them, which is the first thing Jenna asked and I just couldn't live with myself without making a sauce or without having a sauce for these Tomales. recipe I made so I used the tree chiles I had and made an improvised version of tamale in red sauce and I think it's pretty good, it turned out exactly the way I wanted, it's spicy and good, I don't know.

It was just one of those foods that I felt was too incomplete without its sauce, it definitely adds up. I mean, when you take a bite of tamales, you expect to taste something like a tangy flavor to go with it. the rich almost buttery flavor of the tamale and we didn't have that so the whole thing felt really incomplete and then I stopped filming and the only thing I could think about was the damn salsa, that's literally what you want to taste the Rojo, it's Spicy, really super basic tamale. basic sauce but at least we finished you like it Jenna approved it I had to go back and make it for her