Finally! A successful, fluffy tamale without lard or hard fat of any kind. The secret ingredient is: EVOO. There, I've given you something significant - though, I think corn oil and the local sunflower oil might be interesting to try, too.
Dry ingredients: 1 Cup Masa Harina, 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder, 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder, 1/4 tsp. Salt, 1/2 tsp. Adobo Powder, 1/4 tsp. Chipotle Powder (a bit too much).
Mix together with 1/4 cup EVOO - then add 2/3 cup of stock or water. The texture was like a shortbread cookie dough. Chill for 1/2 an hour.
Thin the batter with additional stock until it is the consistency of peanut butter.
1 1/2 Cups of Filling: 2 Tbs. Dry Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, Pulled Pork from this cook; Roasted Garlic, Onions, Carrots and Peppers from this cook.
Moisten with sauce - I used mole from the jar, Candeleros brand - my favorite. It needed additional salt to bring out the sweetness of the vegetables.
If you know how many tamale experiments I've done so far, you know the drill: form a tamale and steam for two hours.
Done! Mess on a plate, served up with more mole. I ran out of filling, so I made those two sad and broken tamales in the foreground with mozzarella. Very messy. We ate it all. I froze the rest in their wrappers to reheat on those days when it's too hot to cook.
Got leftovers? Try tamales!
