Tamales, Tamales!

Chicago's got a couple of street vendors that circuit dive bars and sell delicious, delicious tamales. In my opinion, every city should have at least one tamale guy. These men are public servants. Without them, I may never have tasted a tamale. One part moist corny outside, one part gooey cheesy inside. Oh man, they are amazing. And it turns out they aren't that hard to make.

I got the basic recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, or as it's called in my household, "the green bible." These tamales were the naked variety, sans corn husk. Apparently, corn husk are in fact perishable. So when I discovered mine had molded, I went to plan b and made some in a muffin pan. They were easy to make and tasty as hell.


Naked Tamales with Chile Cheese Filling
More or less from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
Makes about 8 muffin-size tamales
About 2 hours, largely unattended

For the breading:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup masa harina
1 cup vegetable stock
1 tsp baking powder
salt

For the filling:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 serano peppers
1 red pepper
1 poblano pepper
1 cup Chihuahua cheese

An hour or more before cooking, put 1/4 cup of the olive oil into the freezer to solidify. Next, you'll need to roast the peppers. The recipe called for throwing the whole peppers in, but I was worried about them getting too close to the broiler and catching fire, so I cut them in to 3 or 4 pieces to roast. Lay them skin up on a foil lined pan and throw them in the broiler.

Take them out as the skin brown. Remove the skin, slice up, and set aside.


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. The original recipe calls for individual ramekins. I don't own any ramekins, so I used what I had on hand which was a muffin pan. Grease 8 of the tins. You will need a roasting pan that will comfortably hold the cupcake tin. I found my 9 x 12 casserole pan did the trick.

Put 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until they just begin to color, about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and serano peppers, reduce heat to medium, and cook stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes more.


Add roasted peppers, salt and pepper, cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft and compact, about 10 minutes more. When done, turn off heat and set aside.


Bring a kettle of water to boil. Put the masa harina in a food processor, turn on the machine, and add stock 1/4 cup at a time, until a thick paste forms.


Add the frozen olive oil, baking powder, and a large pinch of salt to the masa.


Pulse a few times, then, with the machine running, add more stock, 1/4 cup at a time, until the masa is the consistency of thick batter. It should take a little tap to plop off the spoon.


Fill each muffin tin about a third full with masa. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of the veggies on top of the masa, followed by a sprinkling of cheese.


Fill the tins up with the remaining masa.


Put into/onto the baking pan. Carefully pour the boiling water into the pan to come halfway up the tins.


Cover the muffin pan in tin foil and put the whole thing in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the masa is done and pulling away from the sides of the tins. To plate, cut around the outside of each tin, replace the foil on top, and flip. Serve on top of tomatillo salsa and enjoy.

The take away: masa dough is super easy to make, and you can fill it with anything you like. There is absolutely no reason not to make this recipe.