HOT HOLIDAY TAMALES
Steamed Pueblan-style pockets, with mole that uses pepitas and sunflower seeds, are worth every hour spent making them
Pueblan-style pockets, with mole that uses pepitas and sunflower seeds, are well worth the effort.
Iknow I’ve mentioned this before, but at no time is this more evident than the holiday season: For as long as I can remember, cooking and eating together has been a central part of our family’s dynamic. When we gather, no matter which house, we gather around food — the kitchen and dining areas being each home’s heartbeat. With the pandemic curtailing our holiday traditions this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the family gatherings we had during my childhood.
I remember birthday parties with candyfilled piñatas and holiday celebrations with both sets of grandparents, aunties and uncles and friends of my parents overf lowing
from the kitchen out into the backyard as the food and drinks f lowed.
There were tamales filled with beef, pork and chicken. Carne asada tacos with Dad’s super-spicy salsa cruda. Carnitas with crispy pork belly and pig ears. Steaming bowls of pozole or albondigas. I even remember, once, a hot coal-filled pit dug in the backyard for barbacoa (and days before finding that lamb head sitting on a refrigerator shelf and scaring 8-year-old me nearly to death, giving Dad a good laugh).
Then there were parties where the menu included Italian-American classics — Dad’s specialty — like several pans filled with lasagna, enough spaghetti with meatballs to feed an army, and huge pizzas loaded down with toppings to suit everyone.
There were cookouts with frequent appearances of Dad’s zesty coleslaw and Mom’s macaroni salad. Hamburgers, hot dogs, Mexican grilled corn and ribs smothered in Dad’s homemade barbecue sauce f lew off the always-hot grill.
I remember homemade wine coolers before they were cool and available in bottles. The beautiful cut crystal goblets that came out of storage for glasses of sangria that I couldn’t wait to try once I was old enough. Dessert tables overf lowed with homemade layer cakes with homemade, not-from-plastic-tub frosting. Laughter and Dad’s collection of 45s, streaming “oldies” from speakers, provided the festivities’ soundtrack. And there was love. Lots of love.
As an adult, I’ve always wished I’d paid more attention to those shared family dishes. What exactly were they? How were they made? Who made what? Are they still around to show me how to make it? Sadly, the answer to that question is most often no. So I’m left searching my memories for clues, sometimes resorting to a frustrating Internet search.
Then, a cookbook made it onto my desk, “Nopalito: A Mexican Kitchen” by Gonzalo Guzmán, and I knew I’d found a book that could help me navigate through some of those food memories.
The book is not only beautiful, but filled with one exceptional Mexican recipe after another. In the cookbook, I’ve found many dishes remarkably close to what I grew up eating, many I’ve not heard of and others that I’m glad to have as a blueprint for my culinary explorations. Today’s tamales
chicken tamales with red spiced sunflower seed and pepita mole — is one such recipe.
“These Pueblan tamales get their name from pipian, a mole or complex sauce containing different kinds of seeds such as pepita, sunf lower, or sesame,” says Gonzalo Guzmán in the original recipe’s notes. “The seeds add a richer texture and nutty f lavor to what would otherwise be a simple tomato-based salsa.”
I’ve made several different kinds of moles before, but never this sunf lower version. Though its heat level is mild, the toasted dried chile f lavor still shines.
I’ve made some tweaks to the recipe to better align with my palate, techniques and family traditions. The recipe says you can make the mole with pepitas, sunf lower or sesame seeds, but the instructions didn’t include pepitas; I added them and loved the outcome.
I am fortunate enough to live near several tortillerias (tortilla-making markets) where I purchase freshly ground nixtamalized corn masa instead of making it from scratch, as Guzmán’s recipe has you do. Another tweak was in how to prepare the masa. Recipe directions say to mix all the masa ingredients at once in a stand mixer. In my experience, this produces a dense finished product. I prefer my steamed tamal to have a lighter and f luffier dough. To achieve this, I start with solid lard or shortening and whip it along with the salt and baking powder until it’s doubled in volume before adding the masa bit by bit.
The final tweak is the addition of a potato slice and an olive. Plain meat tamales are a bit one-note for me. My family has always added veg or cheese to our meat tamales for texture and added f lavor. I made this recipe by myself from start to finish in one 6-hour session (4 hours prep time, 2 hours to steam, including cleaning up while the tamales were steaming). Your time may vary, depending on how experienced you are at assembling tamales.
“These need to go into rotation, Ani,” declared my aunt the first night we ate these tamales for dinner.
Agreed. Although these tamales will be a part of our holiday table this year, they’re too good to limit them to just special occasions.