Roasted Corn with Green Chile Cheese Tamales Recipe
Platter of homemade tamales
For the past couple of weeks I've been blogging about my Mexican inspired cuisine journey. Here are the links to those posts.
Food & Culinary Equipment From Mex Grocer
Pozole; Pork and Hominy Stew
Quesadillas; Homemade Corn Turnovers
More Mexican Ingredients From Mex Grocer
Some of the ingredients used to make tamales
Tamale Time
I've been wanting to try making tamales, and yesterday I finally got around to making them. I made a small batch of vegetarian, roasted corn with green chile cheese tamales. They were a bit time consuming to make, but quite tasty. The nice thing about tamales, is that you can make a big batch of them, then keep the leftovers in the refrigerator for a few days. They can even be stored in the freezer for a month or two.
Soaking corn husks in hot water
Roasted Corn Tamales with Green Chile Salsa
This is a multi-step recipe. You will need to prepare the corn husks, make the tamale dough, make the tamale filing, then assemble the tamales before placing them in the steamer and cooking them.
Prepared corn husks
1 recipe tamale dough
1 recipe tamale filing
Shredded cheese
This recipe makes approximately 1 dozen tamales. You will need to prepare approximately 2 dozen corn husks for this recipe, 1 dozen husks for the tamales, another 3-4 husks to tear into ribbons to tie the ends of the tamales together, and around 6-8 husks to line the bottom of the tamale steamer. To prepare the dried corn husks, soak them in a large bowl of hot water, until they are pliable. This can take up to 3 hours, so start this step in advance!
Stand mixer on left, masa harina blended with margarine and seasonings on right
Ingredients for the Tamale Dough
- 1 1/2 cups masa harina
- 6 tablespoons margarine - room temperature
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
- 1 to 1 1/4 cups vegetable broth
- Tomatillos, left, and green chiles, right
- Roasted corn with green chile filling
Directions for the Tamale Dough
I highly recommend using a stand mixer to make the tamale dough. You could use a regular electric mixer, but I think my hands would get tired holding onto it for so long. Kitchen gadgets are your friend!
Place the softened margarine inside the bowl of a stand mixer.
Whip the margarine until light and fluffy.
Beat in the salt, baking powder, sugar and cumin.
Add the masa harina and beat until it resembles fine crumbs.
Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl as needed.
Slowly add the vegetable broth and beat until the dough is light and fluffy.
Cover the bowl of dough with a clean cloth, or piece of plastic wrap, and set aside while you make the filling.
Line the bottom of the tamale steamer with corn husks
Ingredients for the Tamale Filling
1 can corn - drained
4 canned tomatillos - diced
3 canned mild green chiles - diced
2 teaspoons toasted Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon achiote paste
1 tablespoon hot water
Directions for the Tamale Filling
Place the corn in a large frying pan over medium heat.
Cook until the corn begins to turn golden brown, stirring occasionally.
Stir in the tomatillos, green chiles, oregano and cumin.
Place the achiote paste in a small bowl, and stir in the hot water until a smooth liquid is formed.
Stir the achiote liquid into the pan, and cook the filling for another minute or two.
Turn the heat off, and set the filling aside until you are ready to fill the tamales.
Building the Tamales
I thought it would be easiest to take a lot of pictures of the tamales, as they are being put together, rather than typing out a long list of instructions.
Spread 2 tablespoons of tamale dough, on the smoothest side of a corn husk. You can either use a spatula, your hands or a tamale spreader for this step.
Place a heaping tablespoon of filling on top of the tamale dough.
Place a couple of teaspoons of shredded cheese on top of the filling. I used cheddar, but you can use Jack cheese, pepper Jack, Mexican blend, etc...
Fold the left side over the filling, then fold the right side over the filling.
Use two strips of corn husks to tie off the ends of the tamale.
The tamale ready to go in the tamale steamer.
Fill the steamer basket with a couple of inches of water, place the steamer insert on the bottom. Cover the insert with corn husks, then place the tamales on top. Place the lid on the pan, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low. Let the tamales steam for approximately 1 hour. Check occasionally to see if you need to add additional water to the steamer pot.
Carefully remove the tamales from the steamer basket. They will be hot! Unwrap the tamales and eat ASAP. You can either eat the tamales as is, or add a bit of mild red chile sauce, or a bit of hot sauce if you prefer.
My Tamale Future
This was my first attempt at making tamales. They came out better than I thought, but this is another recipe where it would be a big help to have another set of hands. I was going to make 3 varieties of tamales, but once I realized how much time that would take, I decided to only make 1 variety for my first attempt. In the future I would like to try a meat filled tamale and a dessert tamale. YUM!
Take care,
Cuisine Diva AKA Lynn Smythe