How To Get Masa To Float

A masa-complimentary tamal, made with mojarra, tomatillos, xoconostle and epazote

The more I learn nearly Mexican food, the more I realize I'll never know enough.

And so many things merely only aren't written down: recipes, techniques, the names of regional chiles from tiny villages. Really learning this cuisine means traveling to cities and towns and tasting as many things as possible. Or at to the lowest degree studying with people who have.

This is why I was so excited to take a four-day prehispanic tamales cooking course at the Fundación Herdez final week. The form would exist taught past Raúl Traslosheros, a chef who has researched tamales in cities and villages across Mexico, and writes about Mexican culinary civilisation for the magazine Sabor a México. The class likewise included a guided visit to UNAM's Jardín Botánico, led by 2 UNAM scientists (I'd probably call them ethnobiologists): Drs. Robert Bye and Edelmira Linares.

After iv days — and the fantastic visit to the Jardín Botánico, where I'd never been — I concluded up learning more than I could have hoped. I was literally on a tamal-loftier, wanting to shout at everyone, "My eyes have been opened!"

Here's a list of five things I learned in the class. If you're planning to make tamales for Día de Candelaria, which is today, this might exist helpful for you. (For more on what tamales take to practice with Día de la Candelaria, here'due south my post on strawberry tamales from final year.)

V Truths About Tamales

Chirapsia the masa in a KitchenAid mixer.

one. The perfect tamal starts with the masa. Of form the fillings affair too, simply the most margin for error lies in the dough. If your masa isn't adequately hydrated, the tamales will come out sandy and dry; if you haven't beaten the dough plenty, they'll be too dense. The most important matter to think is that tamal masa must be very moist and calorie-free. When you've prepared your masa, do the "float" exam: spoon a fiddling bit of dough into a bowl of h2o. If it floats, it's done. If it sinks, it needs more liquid, a little more fat and several more minutes of mixing, ideally with a loftier-powered mixer.

The KitchenAid is a tamalero'southward best friend.

Adding tortilla masa to a standing mixer, during a tamales course at the Fundación Herdez

2. Using fresh, nixtamalized corn flour makes a divergence. I know not all of united states have admission to harina fresca, fabricated from coarsely ground, winnowed nixtamalized corn. (If you alive in Mexico, this sold at virtually molinos de nixtamal.) But fresh flour really does make a deviation. Not only is the masa more flavorful — it tastes similar corn! — it's also moist, and you don't take to drown your flour in chicken stock or more lard to make up for the difference. Which brings me to number 2…

Doesn't the lard expect and then creamy and good?

iii. Lard, if you're using information technology, must be whipped into submission. One twenty-four hours I'thousand going to experiment with coconut oil, only correct now my tamal fat-of-choice is lard — preferably very white, fresh lard. Vegetable shortening can work, likewise, although Chef Raúl says the tamales made with manteca vegetal overcook and dry out easily. (And so watch the pot like a hawk if you're a vegetarian.) The lard needs to be light and airy, which is what results in that gorgeous, porous, spongey tamal. In form, we whipped our lard with the paddle zipper on a KitchenAid mixer for a proficient 10 minutes.

Only if you don't want to apply lard….

iv. You don't need to utilise any fat at all — lard-less tamales are really delicious. Lard-free tamales are the most historically accurate to Mexico, considering the Spaniards brought pigs afterward they arrived in the 16th century. I'd always assumed they'd be dense bricks, and they are if you put too much masa in the husk. Just if you lot put just the right corporeality — a sparse disc, folded gently around the filling — it's gorgeous. I like the masa-costless tamales to be mixed all the mode through with beans or herbs. You don't fifty-fifty miss the lard.

5. No corn husks? No trouble.

Chef Raul demonstrates how to fold a chaya-leaf tamal

The word tamal comes from the Nahuatl discussion tamalli, which ways "wrapped." You could really wrap your tamales in anything: banana leaves, corn leaves ("hoja de milpa" in Castilian), the leaves of large reeds ("hoja de carrizo"), chaya. Alternately, you don't even demand masa, if you've got cornhusks on hand. Some prehispanic tamales, such as the ane of the mojarra at the beginning of this post, required just placing the fish and ingredients in a corn husk, wrapping information technology tightly and grilling it.

Look, did you just say grilling a tamal?… Yes. I did.

half-dozen. Tamales can be microwaved or grilled. (I know this is a listing of five truths, but these were likewise adept to leave off the list.)

These tamales were cooked on a grill, over a medium-low flame for about an hour.

It was non uncommon in prehispanic Mexico to utilize the husk equally a sort of parchment wrap, to slow-cook and steam whatever was within. You just cull your filling (in our example, we made a fish-tomatillo-xoconostle tamal, and one with craven gizzards and tomatillos), wrap it tightly, and heat it on the comal until cooked all the manner through.

Every bit far as microwaving goes, I wouldn't recommend it for very big batches, but it'due south helpful if you'd similar to zap i and meet how information technology tastes. The masa often needs more salt than yous think it does, because the saltiness level dulls quite a scrap as the tamales steam. UPDATE: You can as well microwave raw, frozen tamales that oasis't been steamed yet. Again, I'd merely recommend in small batches, as the edges tend to get overcooked and tough. (The rest of the tamal is fine.) Wrap them in paper towels and offset at two minutes on loftier, depending on how large they are. This is super convenient if you make a big batch of tamales are are too tired to steam them all! The rest tin be placed raw in a resealable freezer handbag and microwaved one or 2 at a time.

I know I'm only hitting the tip of the tamal iceberg here, then if yous have any more tips or ideas, I'm open to them below.

Feliz Día de la Candelaria!

More On Tamales & Prehispanic Mexican Foods:
Fundación Herdez: A Comprehensive Report on the Mexican Chile (PDF in English)
Tecnología Alimentaria Prehispánica by Janet Long (PDF en español) — An interesting report on how Mesoamerican cultures cooked, the utensils they used, and their cooking techniques
Candelaria means Tamales past Rachel Laudan (Zester Daily)