The typical Mexican dish for the Guadalupe-Reyes marathon celebrations is tamales, whether they are made of meat, beans, or chicken. I am sharing my recipe for pork leg tamales with red chili.
This recipe is available in Spanish: Como hacer tamales de puerco It was originally shared on January 2011 in Spanish. Translated on February 2023.
And if you got the little doll from the Rosca de Reyes cake, you will have to pay with tamales on February 2nd, Candelaria Day. You better learn how to make tamales and atole champurrado.
In some countries, they are called red and green tamales, and many are made only of chicken, but these Mexican pork tamales are my favorites.
This tamale recipe has been prepared by my grandmother, my aunts, my mother, and now me. Even the men in the house help us knead and smear the tamale leaves!
To make the tamales, I recommend starting a day ahead, making the filling, and soaking the tamale leaves. This recipe is for pork tamales, but if you want bean tamales, you can see how to cook the beans here.
You can also see my recipe for Banana Leaf Tamales here and the Cazuela Tamale.
Mexican Pork tamales recipe
Ingredients:
(Makes 100 Tamales)
5 lbs of Nixtamal dough
1 cup of MASECA corn dough
1 1/2 liters of pork lard
7 lbs of cooked and shredded pork leg
1 liter of the broth from cooking the pork
1 bag of corn husks
12 seeded and cooked ancho chili peppers
4 garlic cloves
1/2 onion
Salt to taste
Soak the tamale leaves or corn husks in hot water to soften them, while preparing the other ingredients. (I recommended soaking them overnight).
How to make THE PORK FOR THE TAMALES
Cook the pork in a pot with water, onion, garlic, and salt for about two hours on a normal stove. If using a pressure cooker, it would take about an hour.
Once the pork is cooked and tender, remove it from the water and shred it. (Do not discard the pork broth, as we will need it later).
Prepare the meat filling for the pork tamales. It is recommended to prepare it one day ahead or very early on the same day.
Blend the ancho chili with cooked water and garlic. (Then set aside 1/4 cup of chili).
Heat some lard in a large frying pan and fry the ancho chili mixture. Add the shredded pork and salt to taste. It should be over-seasoned as the flavor will lose a bit when cooking the tamales.
Recipe to prepare the dough for tamales
Place the corn dough and the lard in a large container, begin to knead for enough time, approximately half an hour and gradually add the broth that remained from the meat, we continue kneading.
Add a little of the chili mixture, so that the dough takes color, and add salt to taste. We can taste the dough until it tastes good. We continue kneading, adding a little corn dough, until the dough has a better consistency.
To know that the dough is ready, we can spread a little dough with a spoon on the back of the hand or on a tamale leaf, if it spreads easily and does not stick to the spoon, it is ready.
The legend says that to test if the dough for tamales is ready, take a ball of dough and put it in a glass full of water, if the ball floats, it is a sign that the dough for tamales is ready.
Take a corn husk and spread the dough up to ¾ of the sheet, leaving a free part for the fold.
Fill with a little of the pork stew, in the center of the sheet, along with the dough that we spread, fold the corn husk, and close.
So we continue to fill in all the corn husks. Separate the tamales on one side.
How to PREPARE THE KETTLE OR THE TAMALE POT
Add a little water to the pot, up to the line, before the separator.
Make a ball with the corn husks that we have left, place it in the center of the tamalera and there we will go reloading the tamales, in a circle and with the fold down.
If you are going to make a recipe for tamales with different flavors, you can arrange the meat tamales on one side and the bean tamales or whatever flavor you are going to make on the other so as not to struggle when serving.
Cover the tamales with a cloth towel, or with aluminum foil, then put the pot lid on and cook over medium heat for one hour, fifteen minutes.
After this time take out a tamal and check if it is cooked, if not we may have to cook it for ten more minutes.
If tamal seems a bit raw, it may be too hot, let it cool down a bit. To know if the tamale is ready, the dough must be detached from the corn husk. The tamales are served hot and you can cover them with green sauce.
I hope you liked my beef tamales recipe. We all love tamales at parties, Christmas, New Year, Candlemas Day, and other special occasions. Not to mention the next day when reheated, they are delicious on the comal with their toasted leaves…mmm! Enjoy them!