Ulog 91: Making Homemade Tamales In The Pressure Canner- Oh YES I Did!

Every now and again Mr Golden D will get a taste for something. And not just your run of the mill let's make a pizza, or devour a bowl of ice cream. Oh heavens no! He goes for the unusual. The sometimes hard to make. The sometimes hard to gather ingredients types of things.

And the other day we were going to run over to a little Mexican store that has a lunch counter where they make some of the best tamales and the MOST overstuffed burritos imaginable!

But they were closed!

Days later, he was still craving some tamales, so while he was at work, I was able to get to the store (about a mile from our homestead), purchased some dried corn husks and Mexican corn flour and I set to work making my man some much needed taste bud craving relief.

Soak the dried corn husks in hot water for at least 30-minutes while you prepare the dough (which also needs to be refrigerated for about 20-30 minutes before using. For the meat filling I used the smoked pull pork I had canned a few weeks ago.

Tamale Recipe

Dough

• 3 1/2-cups of Mexican Corn Flour
• 3-cups hot water
• 1/2 pound of lard (I used shortening as I don't keep lard in my pantry)
• 5-tablespoons butter- unsalted
• 2-teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2-teaspoons baking powder

Mix the Mexican corn flour and water together until blended and resembles the consistency of Play-Doh.

In a standing/counter top mixer, blend the shortening/lard and butter until creamed together. Add in the salt and baking powder and mix. Add the flour and water mixture to the creamed mixture in four or five equal amounts. Blend until the dough looks like a cornbread mixture. Refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

Here is the website Tastes Better From Scratch where I saw how to fold the tamales up. I was worried about how difficult it would be, but this picture tutorial was a tremendous help. Once I got the first two or three tamales rolled up, the rest were a breeze.

I don't have an Instant Pot, a steamer or any other special pot to make the tamales, but when I was searching for the recipe for the dough, I came across a few blogs that used their pressure canners to make the tamales. So I figured... why not!

Pressure canned at 10-lbs of pressure for 25 minutes

I know presentation wouldn't get me any award, trophy or cash winnings on a cooking show challenge, but let me tell you...

They were U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E!

I ended up making about 28 of them and each had the pulled pork and in ten of them I added in a little slice of Pepper Jack cheese; which you can see in the tamale above that I unwrapped. OMGOSH! Now I want to experiment with other meats... beef... chicken.