Tamales Cubanos Recipes

Steps:

• Cut pork into 3 chunks and place in a large saucepan. Add onion, garlic, bay leaves, and salt and cover with water. Bring to a boil; skim foam from surface. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. Remove pork and let cool. Strain broth and reserve.
• Bring a pot of water to a boil while pork is cooking. Add tomatoes, arbol chiles, and guajillo chiles, and boil until chiles are soft, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, reserving cooking water, and allow to cool.
• Place corn husks in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and soak for 30 to 60 minutes. Drain, place on a work surface, and cover with a clean, damp towel.
• Combine tomatoes, 1/2 cup cooking water, chiles de arbol, guajillo chiles, and cornstarch in a blender; blend until smooth. Strain tomato sauce through a fine-mesh sieve.
• Beat lard with an electric mixer in a large bowl until fluffy. Combine masa, 1 cup reserved pork broth, 1 tablespoon salt, and baking powder in a separate bowl and mix until smooth. Add masa mixture to lard and mix until it has a smooth cookie dough consistency. Test if the masa is ready by dropping a small ball of masa into a glass of cold water; if it floats, it's ready, if not, keep beating for a little longer.
• Shred cooled pork with 2 forks.
• Select 1 wide corn husk or 2 small ones. Spread about 2 tablespoons masa mixture onto the the corn husk, filling it up to 2 inches from the bottom and 1/4 inch from the top. Add 1 tablespoon of the tomato sauce and pork down the center of the masa mixture. Fold sides of husk together, 1 over the other. Fold the bottom of the husk over the seam of the 2 folded sides. Repeat with remaining husks.
• Place a steamer insert into a saucepan and fill with water to just below the bottom of the steamer. Bring water to a boil. Add tamales with the open side up and cook until filling is heated through and separates from the husk, about 1 hour. Let tamales rest for 15 minutes before serving.

Steps:

• Soak corn husks in hot water 30 min., placing plate on top of husks to weigh them down.
• Meanwhile, blend corn in blender until pureed; pour into large bowl. Gradually stir in masa harina, butter and enough water to form a stiff dough, stirring until mixture is well blended; set aside.
• Heat dressing and sofrito sauce in large skillet on medium-high heat. Add peppers; cook and stir 3 min. Add meat; cook and stir 5 min. or until meat is done. Cool.
• Place 1 corn husk on cutting board with pointed end facing you. Place another corn husk on top, with pointed end facing away from you. Spread 1/4 cup masa dough in center of husk; top with 2 Tbsp. meat mixture. Press meat gently into masa dough. Fold corn husks over filling, completely enclosing filling; tie with strips of some of the remaining corn husks to secure. Repeat to make 10 tamales.
• Add 2 cups water, cumin and garlic to large tamalera pot. Line bottom of tamalera basket with remaining corn husks; add tamales. Place in tamalera pot; cover with lid.
• Bring water to boil; adjust heat to maintain gentle boil. Steam 1 hour or until tamales pull away from corn husks, adding more water to pot when necessary. Remove tamales from tamalera; cool slightly.

Steps:

• Remoja las hojas de maíz en agua caliente durante 30 min. con un plato encima para mantenerlas sumergidas.
• Entretanto licúa el maíz hasta formar un puré; viértelo en un tazón grande. Poco a poco, incorpora la masa harina, la mantequilla y suficiente agua hasta mezclar bien y formar una masa dura; reserva.
• Calienta el aderezo y el sofrito en una sartén grande a fuego medio-alto. Añade el pimiento; cocina y revuelve durante 3 min. Agrega la carne; cocina y revuelve durante 5 min. o hasta que esté completamente cocida. Déjalo enfriar.
• Pon 1 hoja de maíz sobre una tabla de cortar con el lado puntiagudo hacia ti. Pon otra hoja encima con el lado puntiagudo señalando hacia el lado opuesto. Esparce 1/4 taza de la masa en el centro de la hoja; cubre esto con 2 cdas. de mezcla de carne, presionándola suavemente contra la masa. Dobla las hojas sobre el relleno, cerrándolo completamente; amarra cada tamal con tiritas de las hojas de maíz restantes. Repite hasta hacer 10 tamales.
• Pon 2 tazas de agua, el comino y el ajo en una tamalera grande. Forra el fondo del canastillo de la tamalera con las hojas de maíz restantes; agrega los tamales. Pon el canastillo dentro de la tamalera; tápala.
• Deja que el agua suelte el hervor; ajusta el fuego para mantener un hervor suave. Cuécelos al vapor durante 1 hora o hasta que los tamales se separen de las hojas de maíz, añadiendo más agua a la tamalera cuando sea necesario. Saca los tamales de la tamalera; déjalos enfriar ligeramente.

Steps:

• 1. First open, seperate and clean the corn husks of the silk. Put all of the corn husk leaves into a very large pot and cover with very hot water. Let soak for at least a few hours. Leave in the water until you are ready to wrap the tamales.
• 2. Cut you pork meat into small bite sized pieces season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Heat a little of the lard about a 1/4 of a cup and add the pork meat brown on all sides. Do in small batches so meat browns if you do a lot of the meat together it will steam instead of browning. We are looking for a light golden crust on the meat, does not need to be cooked completely. Do not let the meat over brown or burn. After browning add about 2 cups of pork broth or chicken broth and cover with a tight lid and cook for over a medium flame for 1 1/2 hours or until meat is fork tender. Be sure to check that your broth does not dry out or your meat will burn add more broth as needed. When meat is tender shut off and set the meat aside. You can do this the day before. just ake out the meat and let come to room temp when ready to mix with the corn mixture.
• 3. you should have at least 4 pounds of scrapped corn off of the cobbs. Put the corn into a food processor and give a qood process on grate ensuring that your corn is well ground into a thick mash. Do all of your corn like this work in batches until all is ground into a thick mash. Add 1/4 cup sugar and mix well Set aside.
• 4. In a large heavy pot melt the rest of the lard and add all of the diced onions, peppers both sweet and jalapeno, garlic, and the diced red pimentos. Saute until all the veggies are limp and onion is translucent. Next add the tomato sauce; continue to cook over a medium flame. Careful not to scorch any of the sauce. Next add all of the dried seasonings, oregano, cumin, bay leaves, salt, pepper, sazon goya packets, goya adobo, and garlic powder and continue to cook over a medium flame. What you have made is a very large sofrito, Taste to see if your sofrito has enough salt and pepper, if you like a lttle heat you can add a little ground cayanne pepper, not too much. Cuban tamales are spicy and savory but should not have a lot of heat.
• 5. Now pour your mashed ground corn into the veggie and tomato sofrito; mix very well making sure to incorporate all of the sofrito into the corn. Taste again for salt; at this point you may wat to add more of the same seasonings you added before to bring your tamale mixture to the right point of your taste. I know I always land up adding a bit more garlic powder or little more adobe powder until I find the right (Punto) just the right taste. Add your cooked meat stir well and continue to cook over a medium to low flame stirring and stirring until your mixture has somewhat thickend. This stirring process takes about an hour without leaving unattended. You may want someone to help with the stirring as my hand gets tired of stirring the thick mixture. Be sure to lower your flame so as to not scorch this mixture or the whole thing will be ruined. After cooking for one hour or so shut off the tamale mixture
• 6. Take out your soaked tamale husks blot on a clean kitchen towel, You will need three large husks per tamale. Take one large wide husk, they are triangle shaped put about four (4) ounces of tamale mixture in the middle of the husk do not spread on the husk like is done with the Mexican tamale, just drop the mixture in the middle of the husk and fold each side over the the mixture overlapping one side over the other, then take the triangle top tip and fold down over both the sides; now take another large husk and put the tamale you just wrapped in the middle of that husk. The open end should be facing the top of the triangle tip fold both sides one over the other take the top and fold down over the two sides, Now take the last husk place the wrapped tamale into the husk fold over the sides one over the other and then fold the tip over the sides and tie and secure with butchers twine on both ends. See my picture above.
• 7. Fill a large pasta pot half way with water; bring to a boil. When water starts to boil slowely slip in each tamale gently. Boil tamales in the water for about one hour and a half. Keep boiling hot water in a tea kettle or another pot to add to the pot when the water starts to evaporate. The trick is to keep the tamales boiling all of the time for one hour and a half. When done remove tamales into a large pan. Let cool until they can be handled comfortably. As they cool they will thicken and set even more. These tamles can be frozen now after throughly cooled or served warm alone or with a salad or Cuban meal. These tamles are a lot of work as are the Mexican tamlaes but well worth the trouble. I make both Mexican and Cuban tamales for the Holiday season. one pund of the corn mixture will yield about 6 tamales once you add the meat and veggies. I have 16 pounds of the corn mixture to make at least forty or fifty tamales this weekend. You can make the tamales in two days so as to not tire yourself. This is a two or three person job. Enjoy, Buen Apetito