Feliz Navidad

In Checker’s grocery store yesterday my eye fell on a package of pork labeled “pork rump roast.” The meat was very lean and in two large chunks weighing 3.25 pounds.  The imp in my brain – the one that wishes she were a Latina – cried, “Tamales!”

I put the package of pork in my cart and sailed along as if I knew what I was in for. That realization came later. My personal experience with tamales is limited to 1) the kind my mother bought in a can and heated up on the stove, 2) a real tamale I ate and relished high in the New Mexico mountains, and 3) a party Pam gave in which a bunch of Gringo women formed tamales using filling Pam had prepared in advance. That one was hilarious, resulting in tamales ranging from fat and huge to tiny and thin. 

I know that Latinas gather together to make tamales at Christmas time, working as an accomplished group. So, now I’m going to make tamales on my own. Right.

After some consideration and review of a lot of recipes, I chose the simplest recipe and decided to make the filling, and then enlist Marianne for the final production. Lucky for me, she agreed.

Making the filling, though, I was fraught with doubts and indecision. First of all, the meat I bought was 3.25 pounds, while the recipe called for 2.5 pounds. In order to adjust the seasonings and sauce accordingly, I had to re-learn how to figure percentage, something I knew perfectly well in high school, more than sixty years ago. Fine. I needed the mental exercise.

I was ready to cook! I liked the recipe’s instruction to cut the raw pork into three-inch pieces. (Another recipe called for cooking the meat in one large piece.) After the meat was cooked with spices and seasoning it was very easy to shred.

Then it was time to cook the shredded meat with more spices and one cup of the liquid from simmering the meat. It was supposed to simmer for 25 minutes until all the liquid was absorbed. 

From the start I could see there wasn’t enough liquid to last 25 minutes, so, what the heck, I added some more. That seemed to work out pretty well. But, is this what tamale filling is supposed to look like? I have no idea, but this is what I have and this is what we’re going to use.

Thank goodness Marianne is coming to help with phase two. I don’t think I could face it alone. I’ll get some Mexican beer to help us through the process.

In the meantime, I’m asking myself why I didn’t stick to what I know how to make such as English toffee and peanut brittle. It’s that naughty imp’s fault. Feliz Navidad!

Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer