Recipes: Dia de la Candelaria
For the masa I used a recipe I found online. I'll attach a link to this post! These are the recipes for the chicken mole and rajas fillings. The bean, cheese, and salsa verde is just a question of assembly. Before starting, soak your corn husks in hot water so that they soften.
Chicken Mole
Ingredients
- 3 chicken breasts
- 1 onion, halved
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 Knorr stock cubes
- 1 jar Doña Maria Mole
- 1 tablet of Ibarra chocolate, 2 depending on how spicy you want it
- 5 cups of water
- salt
Preparation
Put chicken breasts in a pot with water, onion, garlic, stock cubes, and butter. Cook chicken. Once cooked take it out and let it cool. Discard onion and garlic, but keep the water!
In a separate bowl melt the Doña Maria and chocolate tablet. Progressively add water from the chicken. Stir from time to time making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom or boil. Occasionally taste to see how spicy you want it, adding more water if necessary.
While you cook the mole, shred the chicken. When your mole is ready, stir in the chicken. Season to taste.
Rajas con Crema (Disclaimer: I couldn't find fresh chiles poblanos so I had to use canned. If you know where to get fresh ones and how to prepare them, go for it! Hopefully soon I can make this recipe with fresh chiles and I'll upload an. entry on how to prepare them!)
Ingredients
- 1 can chiles poblanos, sliced
- 1 jar double cream
- half an onion, sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 2 ears of corn, with corn cut off of the cob
- salt and pepper to taste
- olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
Instruction
Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Sauté onion until soft. Add butter, garlic, chiles poblanos, and corn. Stir and cook until soft. Add double cream and season.
Assembly
Once your fillings and masa are ready and your corn husks have softened, you are ready to assemble your tamales. Although I will outline a technique, this part is mostly trial and error and figuring out what works best for you! I prefer making small tamales, especially when they have different fillings.
Your corn husks should naturally fold a certain way, creating a sort of pouch, and they usually have a thicker and thinner end. Take a corn husk, spread a thin layer of masa over the thicker end. Add some filling in the center of the masa. Fold both of the long sides over and then the thinner end as if to create an envelope. Repeat until you're done with all your masa, corn husks, or filling. If the tamales won't stay closed, you can rip a piece of a different corn husk and use is to tie the tamal closed. Alternatively, you can use another corn husk and wrap the tamal in the other direction.
For the salsa verde, cheese, and bean tamales: spread masa as usual, spread a layer of refried beans (previous cooked with some lard), place a slice of cheese of your choice ( I used cheddar as it melts the easiest without getting watery. However if you have queso Oaxaca, even better!), add some salsa verde and wrap up!
Don't stress out if you have any leftovers of the components! If you have extra husks, save them for next time. You'll most likely have leftover filling which can be eaten on its own. As for the masa, you can use it to make quesadillas, pupusas, etc. (just make sure you refrigerate it since it has lard).
To cook your tamales, the easiest and traditional way is with a tamalera. However, if you don't have one, like me, you can just steam them with a pot of water and a metal colander. Of course you can use a normal steamer, but I don't have one of those either! Steam them for 30-45 minutes with the unfolded side facing up. Check the masa to see if its still mushy or not. If the masa springs back slightly then they're ready. If you're making a lot of tamales, you'll have to cook them in batches. Make sure not to cram them!
