Tomorrow is Cinco de Maio

Tomorrow is Cinco de Maio, one of the many Mexican holidays. Some observers have stated that every day is a holiday in Mexico, but it’s not really true. There are a lot of them though and since fun and food go together, the feast and the fiesta are always linked. Cinco de Maio is not, as many think, Mexico’s Independence Day; that is on September 16th. Cinch de Mayo, also known as Bataya de la Puebla, is celebrated because of a Mexican victory over the French.

Red Wing has a sizeable Mexican population and a great restaurant, Fiesta Mexicana, as well as a specialties grocery store and café, La Chiquita, and those were my first stops to find out what the authentic food would be for Cinco de Maio. Marco Flores, the owner of La Chiquita was very helpful. He said that tamales are the most common food for this holiday as well as many others. I left his store with instant corn masa mix for tamales (different from the masa mix found in most supermarkets), a bag of dried corn husks and a package of dried Guajillo chiles. Since his English was much better than my Spanish, I managed to get the recipe, more or less, for the tamale dough, the red sauce and the meat filling.

Then we stopped at Fiesta Mexican where owner Tranquilino Fuentes gave us some more information while we lunched on the restaurant’s version of tamales. Very good. He also said that the typical dessert would be a three-milk cake with one of the milks being the condensed sweetened variety.

Armed with all the ingredients, the directions, and while I still had the good taste in my mouth, I headed home to give it a try. I even had a huge tamale steamer stored in my basement that I bought on clearance a few years ago. I always knew I’d get around to making homemade tamales.

After consulting all my Mexican cookbooks, I decided to proceed in this order: cook the pork; while the pork cooks soak the dried chiles and the corn husks. When the pork is finished, I could then make the tamale dough since it requires broth from the pork. I semi-cheated and made the pork in the pressure cooker—which works great and takes a fraction of the time—but I will give you directions for the long method and if you have a pressure cooker, by all means use it.

P.S. While perusing the Mexican cookbooks, besides different recipes for the three components, dough, filling and sauce, there are a dozen different ways to fill and cook them. I just chose the one that appealed to me but if you do it another way or want to, go ahead.

Pork for Tamales

5-7 lb bone-in pork butt
5 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. cumin
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
Trim fat from pork and cut away from the bone; save meaty bone for another use. Cut trimmed meat into chunks and place in large kettle. Add water, garlic, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Skim foam from surface; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 2 hours, or until so tender that it falls apart.

Remove from heat and cool in broth. When cool enough to handle, drain, reserving broth, and shred meat with 2 forks. Set both broth and pork aside. When salsa is completed and pork is cool add salsa to pork and blend.


Salsa para Tamales

8 dried Guajillo chiles
Water
1-1/2 Tbsp lard or vegetable oil
1 garlic clove
1 Tbsp. flour
2 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin (or more if you like)
¼ tsp. garlic powder

Wash chiles thoroughly. Place in a large saucepan and cover generously with water. Cover and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand 45 minutes or until softened. Drain chiles, RESERVING SOAKING LIQUID. Pull off stems, slit chiles open and rinse off seeds. Place chiles and 1 cup soaking liquid in blender or food processor. Process until pureed. Turn into a sieve and rub through sieve into bowl to eliminate small bits of peel. Rinse blender or processor with an additional 1 cup soaking liquid and pour over remaining pulp in sieve. Heat lard or oil and garlic in a medium saucepan. When lard or oil is fragrant with garlic, discard garlic clove. Stir in flour until mixture is smooth. Cook about 1 minute. Add pureed chile mixture and remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Cook and stir until slightly thickened. Taste and add more salt if needed. Makes about 2 1/3 cups.


Tamale Dough

½ pound dried corn husks (approximately)
1 pound shortening (preferably lard)
5 cups instant masa mix for tamales
1 cup pork broth
3 tsp. baking powder
1 Tbsp. salt

Remove silk from husks and soak in warm water for at least an hour. Beat lard to the consistency of whipped cream in mixer. Mix in masa, broth, baking powder and salt and continue beating until the mixture is so fluffy that a spoonful of it dropped into a cup of cold water will rise to the top. Drain soaked husks and dry with paper towels.

Assembly

Lay one soaked corn husk on paper towel, smooth side in. Spread out and dry with another paper towel. Using about 2 Tbsp of prepared masa, spread across center of each husk from 1 edge to within ½ inch of other edge. Spoon 2 Tbsp. pork mixture (pork and salsa) into center of dough. Fold husks around filling starting with dough edge. Fold pointed end of corn husk up first and other end down over point. Tie to secure using either string or corn husk strips. Place tamales on rack in large kettle or tamale steamer. Pour boiling water into kettle to just under rack level. Cover. Keep water simmering over low heat 1 hour. Makes 3-4 dozen small tamales.

Notes: Although the salsa made from the chiles was outstanding, I found that any good red sauce or enchilada sauce can be substituted.
Serving suggestions; make a small puddle of warm salsa on plate. Place opened or unopened tamales over sauce. Make a salad of shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and sliced avocados with a dollop of sour cream on top. Cover warm tamales and any other hot foods (such as refried beans or Spanish rice) on the same plate with shredded cheddar cheese.

I couldn’t find a recipe for the 3-milk cake, but I found many using sweetened, condensed milk. Since the tamale making is rather involved and time consuming, here is the dessert I liked best.

Dulce De Leche

Simmer an unopened can of sweetened, condensed milk in water to cover for 3 hours. Cool it, open both top and bottom of can, turn out and slice. If you want something extra special, put on top of a slice of pineapple, add a spoonful of whipped cream and sprinkle with chopped almonds.