PORK TAMALES RJ style

Already unwrapped & served

Masa:                     4 cups Maseca for Tamales

                                4 cups Broth (from pork roast)
                                1 ²/₃ cups Vegetable Shortening
                                2 tbsps Baking Powder
                                1 ½ tsps Sea Salt
                                2 ½ tsps Chili Powder
                                Corn Husks, soaked in hot water

Filling:                    1 Pork Roast (at least 1 ½ lbs)
                                1 lg 28oz can Las Palmas Red Chile Sauce-medium
                                (or you can use my red chili sauce recipe)
                                2 tsps Chili Powder,     ¾ tsp Cayenne Pepper (alter to taste)
                                1 tsp Garlic Powder       1 tsp Onion Powder

Directions for Pork
     Boil pork roast in a large pot, add enough water to cover the roast well. Bring to a boil and then turn down.  Simmer until nice and tender when you can shred with a fork. Remove from water and cool.  Set aside broth for tamale masa.
     Once cooled, shred pork with a fork. Return to pot and add red chile sauce, 2 tsps chili powder, cayenne, garlic & onion powder. (remember, the heat of spice at this point will seem much milder once in the tamale)  Simmer until sauce mixture cooks into pork. Then set aside to cool.

Directions for Masa (I use a stand alone mixer, if you don’t have one mix by hand)
Using triangle cookie dough mixing attachment (the triangle one with three holes)
Mix Maseca for tamales, baking powder, Salt, 2 ½ tsps Chili Powder in a bowl and set aside.  In mixer, mix vegetable shortening until fluffy, slowly add in dry ingredients from the bowl. Slowly add in broth until mixture has consistency of cookie dough.

Using a spatula or tamale spredder.  Take corn husk (should be about 6-8” wide)
spread masa on corn husk in approx 4x4” square. Make sure to leave a ½” space from top of husk to allow for swelling during cooking. Also make sure masa is closer to edge facing you.  In center of masa place about 1” wide by 3” long strip of pork (again amount depends on you) take edge facing you of corn husk and fold over so that masa edges touch. Tuck corn husk in and continue rolling. Fold up bottom of husk. Continue until all masa is used.

I have a tamale steamer.  Add water to steamer pot, place tamales on rack facing open side up so they are stacked side by side.  Bring to a boil & Steam for 1 ½ hours.  Be sure to track water level about every ½ hour or so. After 1 hour I place a cotton towel over top of the pot and put lid over that to absorb the extra moisture during cooking.  This helps the tamales to dry during the last half hour of steaming.

Yields approx 40-50 tamales, depends how much you use per tamale