Tamales

We'd agreed, before we left for California, that we should eat lots of Mexican food there. I'd also discovered that I had, totally by coincidence, booked a hotel for our first three nights in Monterey right opposite a Whole Foods in a little outdoor mall type thing (and, by the way, a farmer's market the day after we arrived in the parking lot - double stroke of luck!)... We have previous for doing most of our eating on road trippy type American adventures out of Whole Foods markets.

So when we arrived, having flown 11 hours with our 7 month old baby and driven for two straight off of the flight, getting in about 8pm, we made as fast a turnaround as we could and went straight over to the Whole Foods to see what we could scavenge for dinner... We got there about 10 minutes before closing so it was a bit of a supermarket sweep, but included guacamole, salsa, and microwavable vegan tamales... We'd made sure to book a motel with a microwave in the room (and a pool), to make life with baby easier. The tamales turned out to be delicious (and microwavable in 3 min!), so we ended up eating loads of them during our trip. We also made it to two awesome Mexican restaurants during our trip - (1) vegan Mexican El Cantaro in Monterey; and (2) veg-friendly Obelisco in Fruitvale, Oakland.

When we got home, S found this recipe and convinced me to try it while he took care of baby S. It was quite a project and took a while, but kind of fun... I made them with sweetcorn, monterey jack cheese, sweet potato and a bit of chili inside - our fave ones from Whole Foods were with butternut squash, corn, and a little chilli and cheese. Luckily our local Irma just started stocking various Mexican goodies including masa harina (I guess we have Hija de Sanchez to thank for that).

(makes 12-20 depending on size of corn ears/husks)

3 ears fresh sweetcorn in their husks
1 3/4 cups masa harina mixed with 1 cup plus 2 tbsp hot water, then allowed to cool
4 oz butter, cut into 1 cm dice and slightly softened
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 mild chili, finely chopped
1 small sweet potato, peeled and chopped into 1 cm dice (or use butternut squash)
monterey jack cheese, amount to taste, chopped into 1 cm dice

Corn and Husks:
Cut through the ears of corn just above where the cob joins the stalk. Carefully remove the husks without tearing, and put into warm water. Remove and discard the corn silk. Slice the kernels off the cobs and set aside 2 cobs' worth for dough and 1 cob's worth for filling.

Dough:
Put the kernels from two corn cobs into a blender and blend to a medium-coarse puree. Transfer to a large bowl, then add the masa, butter, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix with wand blender and wooden spoon til well combined.

Form and steam tamales:
Sort the husks: keep the best ones (large and whole) for the tamale outer layers; tear thin strips off any non-whole large ones for tying tamales; and use any remaining small/broken ones to line the base and top of the steamer. Set up the steamer and line it with husks. Then take one large husk (or two overlapping medium ones - but start with large ones), and spread about 1/4 cup of the batter into about a 4 in square, leaving at least a 1 1/2 in border on the side toward you and a 3/4 in border along the other sides (with large husks, the borders will be much bigger). Sprinkle about 1 1/2 tbsp of the filling down the center of the batter. Pick up the two long sides of the husk and bring them together (so the batter surrounds the filling). Bring the borders together and roll both sides in the same direction around the tamal. Finally, fold up the empty 1 1/2 in base of the husk (to form a tightly closed “bottom” leaving the top open), and secure it in place by loosely tying one of the strips of husk around the tamal. As they’re made, stand the tamales on their folded bottoms in the prepared steamer. Don’t tie the tamales too tightly or pack them too closely in the steamer - they need room to expand. If your husk-wrapped tamales don’t take up the entire steamer, fill in the open spaces with loosely wadded aluminum foil (to keep the tamales from falling over). Top with additional husks, cover and steam over a constant medium heat for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Watch carefully that all the water doesn’t boil away and, to keep the steam steady, pour boiling water into the pot when more is necessary. Tamales are done when the husk peels away from the masa easily. Let tamales stand in the steamer off the heat for a few minutes to firm up. For the best textured tamales, let them cool completely, then re-steam about 15 min to heat through.