Monday Menu: Turkey Tamale

Leftover turkey, pork and beans from the last few cooks in tamale form.

I happened to have some pork fat from making pork stock,

and turkey stock as well.

I used the basic tamale recipe here, with a variation using the fat and stock above - and substituting beans for half of the poultry.

All the filling ingredients.

I added a commercial mole sauce to moisten the filling, about a 1/4 cup.

The masa batter was like cookie dough this time. I haven't had one tamale make that turned out exactly like the previous one.

Masa and filling.

This made only six tamales that were steamed for 1 1/2 hours.

Looks good!

The masa came out drier than I would have liked - perhaps the filling should have been wettter, or I could have incorporated more stock in the masa. The pork fat left behind that 'lardy' flavor, but it was far less pronounced than using commercially prepared lard. No problems that more mole and a hit of melted cheese couldn't fix.

I'm still learning.