CUBAN TAMALES MADE WITH FRESH CORN, TAMALES CUBANOS DE MAIZ CRIOLLO TIERNO

Steps:

• 1. First open, seperate and clean the corn husks of the silk. Put all of the corn husk leaves into a very large pot and cover with very hot water. Let soak for at least a few hours. Leave in the water until you are ready to wrap the tamales.
• 2. Cut you pork meat into small bite sized pieces season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Heat a little of the lard about a 1/4 of a cup and add the pork meat brown on all sides. Do in small batches so meat browns if you do a lot of the meat together it will steam instead of browning. We are looking for a light golden crust on the meat, does not need to be cooked completely. Do not let the meat over brown or burn. After browning add about 2 cups of pork broth or chicken broth and cover with a tight lid and cook for over a medium flame for 1 1/2 hours or until meat is fork tender. Be sure to check that your broth does not dry out or your meat will burn add more broth as needed. When meat is tender shut off and set the meat aside. You can do this the day before. just ake out the meat and let come to room temp when ready to mix with the corn mixture.
• 3. you should have at least 4 pounds of scrapped corn off of the cobbs. Put the corn into a food processor and give a qood process on grate ensuring that your corn is well ground into a thick mash. Do all of your corn like this work in batches until all is ground into a thick mash. Add 1/4 cup sugar and mix well Set aside.
• 4. In a large heavy pot melt the rest of the lard and add all of the diced onions, peppers both sweet and jalapeno, garlic, and the diced red pimentos. Saute until all the veggies are limp and onion is translucent. Next add the tomato sauce; continue to cook over a medium flame. Careful not to scorch any of the sauce. Next add all of the dried seasonings, oregano, cumin, bay leaves, salt, pepper, sazon goya packets, goya adobo, and garlic powder and continue to cook over a medium flame. What you have made is a very large sofrito, Taste to see if your sofrito has enough salt and pepper, if you like a lttle heat you can add a little ground cayanne pepper, not too much. Cuban tamales are spicy and savory but should not have a lot of heat.
• 5. Now pour your mashed ground corn into the veggie and tomato sofrito; mix very well making sure to incorporate all of the sofrito into the corn. Taste again for salt; at this point you may wat to add more of the same seasonings you added before to bring your tamale mixture to the right point of your taste. I know I always land up adding a bit more garlic powder or little more adobe powder until I find the right (Punto) just the right taste. Add your cooked meat stir well and continue to cook over a medium to low flame stirring and stirring until your mixture has somewhat thickend. This stirring process takes about an hour without leaving unattended. You may want someone to help with the stirring as my hand gets tired of stirring the thick mixture. Be sure to lower your flame so as to not scorch this mixture or the whole thing will be ruined. After cooking for one hour or so shut off the tamale mixture
• 6. Take out your soaked tamale husks blot on a clean kitchen towel, You will need three large husks per tamale. Take one large wide husk, they are triangle shaped put about four (4) ounces of tamale mixture in the middle of the husk do not spread on the husk like is done with the Mexican tamale, just drop the mixture in the middle of the husk and fold each side over the the mixture overlapping one side over the other, then take the triangle top tip and fold down over both the sides; now take another large husk and put the tamale you just wrapped in the middle of that husk. The open end should be facing the top of the triangle tip fold both sides one over the other take the top and fold down over the two sides, Now take the last husk place the wrapped tamale into the husk fold over the sides one over the other and then fold the tip over the sides and tie and secure with butchers twine on both ends. See my picture above.
• 7. Fill a large pasta pot half way with water; bring to a boil. When water starts to boil slowely slip in each tamale gently. Boil tamales in the water for about one hour and a half. Keep boiling hot water in a tea kettle or another pot to add to the pot when the water starts to evaporate. The trick is to keep the tamales boiling all of the time for one hour and a half. When done remove tamales into a large pan. Let cool until they can be handled comfortably. As they cool they will thicken and set even more. These tamles can be frozen now after throughly cooled or served warm alone or with a salad or Cuban meal. These tamles are a lot of work as are the Mexican tamlaes but well worth the trouble. I make both Mexican and Cuban tamales for the Holiday season. one pund of the corn mixture will yield about 6 tamales once you add the meat and veggies. I have 16 pounds of the corn mixture to make at least forty or fifty tamales this weekend. You can make the tamales in two days so as to not tire yourself. This is a two or three person job. Enjoy, Buen Apetito