I’m starting to establish a tradition of having a decent-sized birthday party every year. My birthday is January 15, so the party usually falls on the weekend before school restarts—not a bad time to have a fiesta.

One of my newer traditions is making tamales for the party. I’ve made them a few times and they’ve turned out DELICIOUS. This is because I practice beforehand to make sure I haven’t gotten rusty.

This year I’m making a practice batch for Thanksgiving. I thought I’d give the details here, just for fun. This is a two-day recipe, which yields about three dozen tamales.

Pay attention now. First you need a tamal pot; a steamer about a foot tall would also work. Then you need the following…

TAMALES: THREE DOZEN

Overnight ingredients:

• 8 oz. package of corn husks (hojas para tamal)
• 2 1/2 pounds of pork roast or boneless beef chuck (optional—chicken or veggie tamales are also delicious)

Ingredients for meat filling:

• 3-5 dried ancho chiles (depends on size—three big ones would be fine)
• 2-3 dried guarillo chiles
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 1 cup broth (from the meat after cooking)
• 2 tbsp shortening
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• fresh chile and jalapeño peppers (optional)

Ingredients for masa batter:

• 2/3 cup shortening
• 4 cups masa harina (corn flour, available in most supermarkets)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups broth (from the meat!)
• 1/3 melted butter

Just for fun, here’s a pic of the ingredients:

Important note: You don’t have to put them all on your stove top. I just did that for the photo.

Okay. First there’s some overnight prep work. Open up the package of corn husks and separate them. There will be some dirt, corn silk and other crap mixed in. Don’t worry about it; it’ll soak off. Just take care not to tear the husks too much. You’ll be using them to wrap tamales later, and tamales don’t wrap well in little tiny husk shreds.

Here’s a poor pic of me separating husks:

The husks need to be soaked overnight. I don’t have a lot of spare places to soak things, so I just use the tamal steamer. I fill it full of water and husks, and then put the steamer doodad on top to keep the husks underwater.

Soak the husks at room temperature. Don’t drain ‘em until you use ‘em.

While this is going on, you can boil the meat you’re going to use for filling. Simmer it for 35-40 minutes or until tender.

That looks exciting. After you’re done, drain the meat but save the broth. Refrigerate both in covered containers overnight.

(I think chicken tamales are great, too, so don’t hesitate if that’s what you prefer. I can’t use chicken anymore because of allergies. Doh!)

DAY 2

Good morning. It’s time to make the meat filling for the tamales.

Boil some water for the dried chiles; after it comes to a boil, turn the heat off and soak the chiles for at least 20 minutes.

While you’re doing this, you can break the meat into shreds. This is annoyingly time consuming.

And… another thing you can do in the meantime is cook the onions and garlic in 2 tbsp shortening.

When the onions and garlic are tender, add the meat and mix well.

Drain the chiles and blend them with the oregano, cumin, cloves, and a cup of broth. Blend this until it’s smooth.

Now it all goes into one skillet, like so. I’ve added some fresh peppers here ’cause I like things extra spicy. But you can do without.

And you’re done with this long step! But you’ve got awhile to go.

Time to make the masa batter. Beat 2/3 cup shortening in a bowl. In another bowl, combine all of the masa with 1 tsp salt. Now beat in little bits of your 2 cups broth and masa flour mixture alternately (not all at once). Now mix in your 1/3 cup melted butter. What you end up with should have cake batter consistency.

If it’s too dry, add a little more broth.

Get those husks out!

And now, yet another long step…the ASSEMBLY PROCESS. It’s pretty simple. Spread a couple tbsp masa batter down the middle of a corn husk. Spread it pretty flat, so you have a few square inches to work with. Some people use a spreader; I find it easier to use fingers. Then add 1 tbsp or so of meat filling down the middle. Don’t add too much; you need to be able to wrap the batter around the filling.

Fold the whole thing into a cylinder, ensuring that the filling is completely encased by dough. Fold the bottom end of the husk up so nothing can escape out of the bottom. Now you’ve got yourself a tamal (or if you prefer a little American back formation, a tamale).

Repeat one billion times or until you run out of batter or filling.

Gently boil some water in the tamal pot/steamer, then arrange your tamales upright in the steamer basket.

Hint! Use your extra husks to fill up the pot so your tamales won’t fall down. Use a few to cover the tops. But don’t pack the pot too tightly.

AND FINALLY!

Steam those tamales for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Somewhere during the process, take a tamal out and “test” it for firmness (this gives you the chance to eat one, of course).

It should be somewhere in that happy medium between doughy and dry.

Now it’s time to eat. Tonight we had tamales, Spanish rice and salad. As you can tell, I helped myself to Thanksgiving-style portions.

Scrumptious!

EDIT: By the way, leftover tamales freeze pretty well; you can microwave them or, even better, steam them (microwavin’ leaves them a little dry).