On page 263 of Miss Pinedo's book El cocinero español, she lists "Tamales al vapor" or Steamed Tamales. Underneath she adds that it is the "latest novelty." It is a tamale made in a pudding mold and is steamed. I see the advantage: instead of wrapping individual tamale servings, you made the whole thing at once to serve a crowd.
I wanted to make it as she might have, starting with dried chiles to make the sauce and working my way through the entire process.
Note that I scheduled an entire day to get it made! The best part was I had a guest cook, NH, helping me along the way.
There are a variety of recipes Miss Pinedo offers to use as guides. I chose this recipe on page 248 for the sauce:
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| My translation |
My Notes
I put a lot of water into my stovetop tea kettle and started heating it.
I used 12 chiles: 6 each of California and Guajillo. To "decrown" is to remove the stem end; then I split them down a side and removed the seeds (saving some for the sauce) and any loose veins that tore out easily.
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| Straight out of the bag |
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| Decrowning |
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| Seeds and veins removed. |
They went into a 250 degree F oven. I took them out after 15 minutes because they had puffed and darkened.
They went into a bowl of ice water for just a few minutes and then the water was drained off. I put them in a saucepan and poured the hot water from the tea kettle over them, just enough to cover the chiles. The lid went onto the saucepan and the chiles soaked for two hours.
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| Beginning of the soaking |
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| After soaking |
The water was drained off and the chiles went into the blender. I added enough water allow the blending to proceed smoothly and I processed them until there were no big pieces but I could see tiny bits of skin.
NH used the back of a ladle to push the pureed chiles through a coarse sieve, occasionally stopping along the way to remove the bits that didn't go through. At first it was too thick to push through, so she added enough water to make it workable. What she ended up with was about 1 1/4 cups of chile puree.
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| Smooth! No bits. |
We then added 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon dried and crumbled oregano, two tablespoons olive oil, and two tablespoons white wine vinegar.
This was the sauce. Next we worked on the filling, which Miss Pinedo calls the stew.
I used this recipe on page 262 as our guide:
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| My translation |
I had a big bag of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, so NH cut them into bite-sized pieces. While she was doing that, I heated up a pan of water with 1 teaspoon salt in it.
To parboil the chicken pieces, I put a handful in the hot water and stirred it to separate the pieces. They stayed in the water (with an occasional stir) until the exterior was no longer pink (about 5 minutes per batch). Then they were removed and drained. We used about 2 pounds of meat, total. As each batch finished draining, they went into the chile sauce, which was over a very low heat.
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| This looked like a good meat-to-sauce ratio. |
Next we turned to page 261 and the recipe for beef tamales to continue making the stew.
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| My translation |
We also referenced pages 263 and 264 on Mexican style tamales for more ideas on what to go into the filling.
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| My translation |
We focused on the beef tamale instructions that said:
On the other hand, a lot of onion is chopped and fried in
good fat; when it begins to brown, add a tablespoon of dry flour and stir and
turn the sauce to prevent the flour from sticking or browning too much.
Immediately, a good thick red chile sauce is added; seasoning it with salt,
oregano, and some toasted and ground red chile seeds, and olives from Spain.
Then place the meat in the sauce, letting it simmer over a slow and prolonged
heat until it is well seasoned.
A large onion was diced and fried in olive oil, adding 1 heaping tablespoon of flour once the onions started to brown. This was stirred a lot until the whole thing looked thick.
Meanwhile, I took the few (2 to 3) tablespoons of chile seeds I had saved and toasted them in dry, hot skillet. It is important to keep the seeds moving while toasting to avoid scorching.
The time to stop toasting is when many or most are browner and you can smell a toasted scent.
Then they were ground in the little coffee grinder that is used just for spices.
We tasted them. Surprisingly, they weren't really spicy. We decided to use them because they might add a toasted flavor and possibly thicken the sauce a little.
The inspiration from the Mexican style recipe was to add garlic (1 tablespoon, chopped), black olives (about 15, chopped), almonds and walnuts (about 1/2 cup total, chopped), and raisins (1 1/2 handfuls).
Once everything was in the sauce, we tasted to adjust the seasoning. We added another 2 tablespoons of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of salt. That tasted just right. We also added some of the broth the chicken was parboiled in to make it moister.
Then we put the stew over a very low heat, covered the pan, and let it cook for an hour or so.
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| Done cooking. |
This is the end of part one. Part two is posted next. This is making the masa and assembling the entire dish.
Summary of what we used for the sauce and filling:
12 chiles
2 lb chicken thigh meat
olive oil
1 large onion
1 heaping tablespoon flour
15 olives
1/2 cup total chopped almonds and walnuts
1 1/2 handful raisins
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 - 3 tablespoons chile seeds
4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons salt + 1 more teaspoon for the parboiling water
1 teaspoon dried oregano
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