ISO an authentic tamale recipe

[oldbay]

Thanks!
We'll have to see how it goes. They are quite large so I'll need to figure out the right size to cut. I'll report what I finally cut the size them to for nice sized tamales.

[BagCSC]

I have made them in the past. It is a LONG process and is best done with lots of people. We added a few raisins to the ones we made. Apparantly, it is common in Mexico or so they said (this came from people who came from Mexico).

[oldbay]

Homemade tamales are a lot of work. I made them a couple weeks ago, and couldn't find dried corn husks at any of the local stores, so I just bought some corn, and husked them, then picked through for the best ones.

I spread the work out over two days. One day I make the meat filling. The next day I filled, and cooked the tamales.

The result was worth the work and we still have a few left in the freezer. I had wanted to make large tamales that I had remembered eating in California many years ago, and was on a quest to find banana leaves. They are quite large, and will need to be cut to the size for the tamales. I have some butcher wrap paper and will mess around with that unless you know the proper size for a super-size tamale. By super-size tamale, I'm, thinking 3 inchs across and 3 inchs high.

Do you mix the raisins in to the meat when cooking, or into the tamale when rolling them up?

[BagCSC]

Honestly, I cant remember. I think it was with the meat and (potatoes?). I didnt mix it, I just remember trying to spread masa and thinking how hard it was. I also helped with the rolling and remember seeing the raisins and thinking ugh..gross, but actually, they added a hint of sweetness and were great.