I love a good tamale, I always have and I always will, but after becoming a vegetarian about 9 years ago I’ve been in search of good tamales and am always left wanting. Everyone seems to think vegetarians want spinach and feta in their tamales and I for one do not! If I wanted spinach and feta, I would be eating Greek food, not tamales. So today after finding a little impromptu kitchen inspiration, I made my own! I have to admit it took a while, and required a lot of different kitchen appliances, so I’m glad I made enough to freeze for later. I also have to confess I don’t stock corn husks in my pantry, so I used parchment papers taken out in 4 inch sheets and cut in half.
The filling was Tillamook Mexican cheese blend, and a cilantro pesto I made for a cooking contest
to go on something else, but after tasting it I knew it was meant to be in
tamales!
Cilantro pesto:
1 tablespoon olive oil¼ cup pumpkin seeds
3 cloves garlic
½ to 1 jalapeno (some like it hot!)
1 ½ cup cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp lime zest
1 tsp salt
Enough water to blend smooth (1-2 tablespoons)
Give this a whirl in the blender until it’s a smooth green
spread like pesto.
After making the pesto, I adapted a recipe off of the side
of my Masa bag- it was pretty easy to make, no more difficult than whipping up
a batch of brownies.
Basic tamale recipe:
2 Cups Masa Harina 1/2 Cup Organic vegetable shortening
1 Cup Lukewarm vegetable stock
1 Cup Lukewarm Water
1 Tsp Baking powder
1 Tsp salt
More water if needed to make tamale dough thin.
I mixed all the ingredients together with my stand mixer (I’ve
used hand mixers, and just my hands too. Both of these methods work fine.) Because
the vegetarian filling doesn’t hold the same bulk as a meat tamale I like to
make my tamale dough a lot thinner so that it doesn’t end up overwhelming the
filling. This is a problem I’ve come across many times.
Get your steamer basket or rice cooker going, and start an
assembly line to make your tamales. I like mine to go Wrappers, Dough, Pesto, 2
cups shredded Mexican cheese blend, bowl to put finished product in.
Spread 1 heaping tablespoon of dough onto wrapper and spread
thin leaving about 1/4 an inch top and bottom. Spread 1 tablespoon of pesto on
dough, and sprinkle on about a tablespoon of cheese. Fold in the center of the
tamale and then fold top and bottom up. Set in bowl sitting slightly upright.
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
As you can see this is what makes this recipe time consuming.
Steam each batch of tamales for 10-15 minutes until tamales
are done. The dough will still be soft when you take them out, and will harden
up when they are cooled. If you are using parchment paper, they will stick some to
the wet paper, so as soon as they are firm peel the parchment away.
Sorry for the lack of photos. I
wasn’t planning on blogging about this because it’s a little more complicated
than the simple food I normally make. But this was too good not to share. If
nothing else hopefully you make some cilantro pesto to thrill your taste buds!
