Don't Try This at Home

I have read that one can make tamales using canola oil instead of lard or Crisco, so I bravely tried it. They tasted okay, but didn't have that lovely, rich, mealy texture. I tried this so you will never have to.

Salsa Rapida with Tamales

We went to the Tucson Tamale Festival today and bought two and a half dozen tamales from various booths, all family operations. The best part was the free samples.

The main varieties on offer were green corn (made with fresh corn) and traditional (made with masa, a dough with lime-treated ground corn). They were filled with beef, pork, chicken, or cheese. Sweet tamales were also available.

I always serve Salsa Rapida by Aida Gabilondo with tamales. I thought I had posted it before, but here it is in all its simplicity:

Salsa Rapida

1/2 cup pure red chile powder (no spices)

1 cup boiling water

1/4 cup vinegar

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon pressed garlic

Soak the chile powder in the boiling water until for about 15 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, rest for a few minutes, and serve.

Christmas Tamales

This year I used my regular pork filling recipe, though I see now I forgot to use onion. It's missing that flavor base, for sure.

For the dough, this year I rendered my own lard instead of buying the sketchy shelf-stable hydrogenated stuff. I just put some chopped up fatback in the crockpot for a day on low; that worked pretty well. The lard was a little softer and meltier than other lard I've encountered, but mild and delicious.

With the tamales we had homemade beans and a sort of ad hoc cole slaw made from brussels sprouts, lime juice, yogurt, olive oil, salt, pepper, and toasted cumin seeds. I made a batch of classic red chile sauce to spoon over the tamales.

Pork Filling for Tamales

I've used this filling for the last two years for holiday tamales. It's an amalgamation of various tomatillo salsa recipes and some pork recipes from Aida Gabilondo and James Peyton. It's very satisfying. It would work anywhere, really -- enchiladas, quesadillas, grilled sandwiches...on a spoon straight out of the bowl...

I suppose one could make a small batch, but I think it's hardly worth it.

First, you need a big chunk of pork. I used a 3.5-pound bone-in rib-end loin roast. Brown it all over, then cover it with water and poach it in a Dutch oven until the meat is soft and shreddable. Add a few cloves of garlic and a few bay leaves to the water. I wouldn't use boneless pork -- without bones, the meat would end up too watery and bland.

Anyway, cool the pork, debone it, and shred the meat.

Chop a small onion finely and saute it over medium-low heat just until translucent. Mix with the pork.

Cover 1 pound of tomatillos with water in a small pot and bring to a gentle boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Transfer tomatillos to food processor with tongs and process very briefly. Add to pork mixture. If you can't find tomatillos or are in a hurry, you could use Herdez salsa verde, but fresh tomatillos are so pretty.
Add and mix thoroughly:

- 3/4 cup or more roasted green chiles, diced. I used some from the garden that I roasted and froze a few months ago, but you could use 2 to 3 cans of whole green chiles and dice them yourself. (Pre-diced canned green chiles are icky, somehow -- I have to buy the whole ones and cut them up myself.)
- One small bunch of cilantro, chopped
- Salt to taste
- Fresh lime juice to taste

That's it! I made a big batch yesterday and will probably assemble the tamales tomorrow. More on that when the time comes.

Christmas Food Traditions

This reprint of an older Slate article is right in one way: because there's no single Christmas meal tradition in this country, one never knows what to expect from someone else's Christmas dinner. But unlike the author of the article, I think it's wonderful. People save their old, old, traditional family recipes for the holidays, which keeps ethnic foods part of America but not part of mass culture. If not for Christmas, would I have grown up regularly eating Swedish and Norwegian food, except at the odd family reunion? And all my best friend's Hanukkah dinners I went to in high school -- where else in America do you get to eat food like that? I've never seen a restaurant with Manischewitz on the wine list. That kind of food stays around because of the winter holidays.

Still, I love Swedish meatballs, but not enough to make them for the non-Scandinavian Lawson and nobody else (we usually spend Christmas Day alone together). And I'm not going to make lutefisk, even if I could even find a source in South Carolina. But one needs a dramatic central item for a meal as important as Christmas dinner. So I have thrown myself into what is sort of but not completely a family tradition: tamales. Because of all the time our family has spent living in the Southwest, they seem traditional, even though we're not Mexican or Central American. They're festive and warming and delicious; and they're pretty laborious, so I wouldn't want to make them just anytime. They remind me of home. And if I make a huge batch I can freeze them and we can have a few tamale meals later in the year.

I'll document the tamale-making on Sunday.

I'm writing about future food, not food already prepared, because I've been busy and a little stressed out and forgetting to take meal pictures. Last night we had Thai takeout. The night before that, quesadillas and roasted sweet potatoes. Before that Lawson made these awesome giant square rice noodles with stir-fried beef. So we're surviving just fine. And now that I've got some time off work, I can get back to writing here a lot more.

The Annual Tamale Hunt

I was bored with the turkey idea after Thanksgiving this year. Often we have had turkey at both holidays, but this time I couldn’t get excited about it.

So tonight we’re having a variation of the traditional Scandinavian Christmas Eve supper of lutefisk and Swedish meatballs. I’m making a dish called Capilotade--salt cod stewed with red vermouth and onions--which is traditional on Christmas Eve in Nice and Provence. We are keeping the meatballs (otherwise I think Dad might revolt), and Grandma Oty’s plum pudding.

Tomorrow it’s tamales! We had our usual struggle to extract the tamales from the Catholic church in Patagonia. After many confirming phone calls we drove down there last Tuesday, and the office and church were locked up tight. The waitress at Santos Restaurant made several calls on our behalf, but couldn’t rouse a soul. We found a message from the priest when we got home empty-handed, saying the secretary had been sick. Dad drove down again on Thursday and mostly succeeded: that is, he paid for three dozen but only got 30 tamales.

Now, I know we could buy tamales right here in Tucson, or even make them, but this is sport, like hunting or fishing. By the way, it snowed hard on us returning from Patagonia, reminding me of the time we took Lawson and you there last year.

I’m concluding the Mexican Christmas Day feast with mince pie. I bought jars of mincemeat from England this year, and doctored them in my customary way with chopped apple, raisins, and rum. I continued Dad’s family tradition of making a pie vent in the shape of “M” for Moore.