Pulled Pork Tamales

TexanOfTheNorth

Having done a couple of butts on the weekend, I set aside some pulled pork to use for making tamales. Tamales are one of my favorite foods and, while I have never made them before, I have eaten a lot of them in my time. Unfortunately, most of the tamales that I've eaten, either at restaurants or from the store, have not been all that good. In fact, over the years, I've only found two commercially available tamales that I would call "great". One was from a place called Babe's (now closed) in Davis, OK and the other was Ruth's Tamales. Ruth's were always available at the State Fair of Texas but, the last time I went to the Fair 3 or 4 years ago I did not see them so I don't know if she's still in business or not. In any event, I was trying to achieve something similar to those two tamales with my own efforts. I followed this recipe (I have used other recipes from the site and have always been pleased with the results). As my pork was already cooked I had to deviate a bit from the instructions for making the filling. I used a scaled down version of the ingredients and just used my judgement on how long to "cook" everything (next time I'll make a lot less broth). For the masa I added a dash of Chipotle Pepper.

The results were a near perfect match to what I was hoping to achieve. I had enough pork to make 28 tamales (which required two batches of masa). 4 were eaten last night (for testing and quality control purposes) and the other 2 dozen went into the freezer for later consumption. I will definitely be doing this again!

Corn husks and ingredients for the masa. I forgot to set the garlic powder out for the picture and only decided to add the chipotle pepper after the masa had been mixed

This is what the masa looked like once it was mixed.

A tamale ready to be rolled.

Tamales ready to be steamed.

Tamales cooling after steaming.

This one had a little too much masa but still tasted great. I used a little less masa on all the rest.

Griffin

=D> Nicely done, Sir!! Tamales are something I'd like to try one day. Very fond memories. Down in South Texas, its a tradition to eat them on Christmas morning.

CPARKTX

Nicely done. How long do you steam?

Furall

Looks great. I will try this one soon. Thanks for posting.

TexanOfTheNorth

CPARKTX said:

Nicely done. How long do you steam?

@cparktx...they steamed for about 1 hour and 15-20 minutes.

Little Steven

They look amazing John. Something I have never made but really love when I can get them.

jccbone62

Thanks for posting. This is a great idea and I love tamales.

TexanOfTheNorth

jccbone62 said:

Thanks for posting. This is a great idea and I love tamales.

We steamed 1/2 dozen (that had been frozen) last night and had them (as a "side") with some ground brisket burgers. Both the burgers and tamales were great!

Drewdlc17

Awesome!

Wolfpack

Looks great- been wanting to do these since cen-Tex's post awhile ago. Thanks for the reminder

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Nice! Great looking tamales. We do them every Christmas and a few other times throughout the year. Those look awesome

Botch

I love New Mexican cooking, but tamales is one thing I haven't tried myself.  Next weekend...

RV10Flyer

I love me some tamales although I have not made them before.  I added this link to my ever growing future cooks list.  Thanks for sharing.

I wonder if shredded brisket would be good in a tamale;  I don't see why not.

TexanOfTheNorth

RV10Flyer said:

I love me some tamales although I have not made them before.  I added this link to my ever growing future cooks list.  Thanks for sharing.

I wonder if shredded brisket would be good in a tamale;  I don't see why not.

I think brisket would work just fine.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

TexanOfTheNorth said:

RV10Flyer said:

I love me some tamales although I have not made them before.  I added this link to my ever growing future cooks list.  Thanks for sharing.

I wonder if shredded brisket would be good in a tamale;  I don't see why not.

I think brisket would work just fine.

yep, just use the point. It shreds like shoulder. Or use chuckie.

nolaegghead

man, and I thought the secret was a good properly rendered lard.  Good job!

TexanOfTheNorth

nolaegghead said:

man, and I thought the secret was a good properly rendered lard.  Good job!

I have no doubt that lard would actually make a better tamale but the corn oil did an admirable job.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

we do render our own lard. We save all our bacon trimmings and render them down.