Breanne's Tamales

Tamales are a personal favorite of mine to teach to others. I learned from wonderful Mexican lady from Oaxaca. She used banana leaves for her tamales and those were part of my first experience. I have only taught friends with corn husks, however.
Tamales require a lot of time, they aren't for the faint of heart. And if you are going to make tamales you might as well make a lot of them since it is the same amount of time to cook 1 or 100. They freeze well and people love to receive them as gifts.

The day before you can prep the following items:
the meat: beef, pork, chicken
and the sauce: red, green

The Meat:
I have always used leftover roast beef, or pork roast/carnitas. I always boil a chicken for about 3 hours so that I can use the chicken stock for the masa. Whatever meat you are using, shred it to pretty small pieces. It helps from biting into the tamale and having all the meat fall out.

The Sauce:
Red Sauce is usually the milder of the two but it can be hot if you want it. Get some dried chiles. Most recipes call for Chile Ancho. But you can also use Chile Guajillo. The Guajillo are mild. Ancho aren't hot at all.
Either way soak the chiles (the number of chiles you do will depend on how much sauce you want, usually for tamales 5-6 Ancho will work and about 10-12 Guajillo) in hot water until you can pull the stems off. Toast the wet peppers on a skillet until they are warm, but don't burn them. Soak the toasted chiles in hot water for about 45min-1hour. This will make them soft.
Dip the chiles into a blender. Add 1 whole onion cut into quarters or eighths and about 1/2 clove of garlic, peeled. Add some chicken stock, but just enough to help the blender get going. Add more chicken stock if needed. It should be like the consistency of spagetti sauce.

Green Sauce
Get about 10-15 tomatillos. Peel and rinse them. Put them in a pot along with 1- 1&1/2 whole onion, quartered, and 3/4 -1whole clove of garlic. Add a jalapeño or two depending on the hotness of the pepper and how hot you want your sauce. Remember the sauce seems to be milder after it is cooked. Be careful though! You can cut off the stem of the pepper and add the whole thing to the pot (remember the seeds are usually the hottest part) or you can cut off the stem and split the pepper in two to cut the seeds out.

Don't forget to soak the corn shucks in warm/hot water at least an hour before using them. You can soak these the night before as well.

Masa
I always use Maseca. It is a really fine corn flour.
mix:
4 cups masa harina (this is the maseca)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 tsp paprika
1 teaspoon cumin

in a separate bowl stir 1/2lb of lard with a spoon until it is fluffy. Add a pinch of salt and stir that in.

Add the lard and about 3&1/2 cups chicken broth. Alternate 1/4 of the lard and 1/4 of the chicken broth until it is all mixed in. It should be about the consistency of cookie dough.

The filling
pork and beef typically go with the red sauce. Whatever sauce you are making first put your shredded meat into a bowl. Then pour the sauce on. Don't add too much sauce though because it can't be too runny. The sauce is more for flavor anyway. It should look like chopped brisket... more meat than sauce but enough sauce to cover the meat. If you prepped the sauce and meat the day before you might want to heat it in the microwave so it won't be too cold when you fill the tamales since you stick your fingers in it.

The filling (verb)
To fill the tamales take a corn husk and spread the masa with the heel of your hand. The masa should be all the way to the right side and all the way to the top of the husk. It should extend to about the middle of the husk. Spread it about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick. Add some filling, but not alot! Tamales aren't tortas and they aren't supposed to be filled to the brim! Put enough in that you can close the tamale without anyway squirting out.

Roll the tamale closed, making sure that the two sides of masa meet and fold the bottom.

Add water to your pot and stack all tamales in a steamer (tamallero if you have one, but a regular steaming pot works too. Even if you balance correctly you can use a steamer basket as long as your pot is tall enough). If you have a large enough pot you won't have to add water. But if you don't make sure that there is always water in the pot.

Steam them for 3 hours or until the masa is cooked.