Tamales
Masa beaten with lard and stock, spread on a corn husk or banana leaf around a filling, folded and steamed.
What makes it tamales
- Nixtamalised corn masa, beaten light with lard.
- Wrapped in corn husk or banana leaf — the wrapper isn't eaten.
- Steamed.
Where it comes from
Among the oldest foods of the Americas, made in Mesoamerica for thousands of years — portable, keeping, and fit for offerings. The name comes from the Nahuatl tamalli.
Today they're street breakfast, bought from a vendor's steaming pot, and the food of fiestas: whole families gather for a tamalada to make them by the hundred, above all for Christmas and for Candlemas on 2 February.
How it varies
- Rojos
- Pork in a red sauce of dried chillies.
- Verdes
- Chicken in salsa verde.
- Oaxaqueños
- Wrapped in banana leaf, often with mole negro.
Be the first here
Start your own tamalesNo one here has made tamales yet. Start it as v1, and every version after is an experiment the next cook can learn from.
Near it
MexicanCochinita pibilPork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaves and slow-cooked until it falls apart.No one here has made it yet
MexicanMole poblanoA dark, complex sauce of several dried chillies, nuts, seeds, spices and a little chocolate, served over turkey or chicken.No one here has made it yet