Tamale Instructions

Photo: flickr user abbamouse

Ingredients

2 pkts Dried cornhusks

Preparation

Prepare the corn husks: First gothrough the corn husks, separating them, and removing pieces of cornsilk

(and also dirt, etc.) that you find. Then place them in a large bowl and cover with tap water. (I put several plates on top of the corn husks to hold them down, because they have a tendency to float.) Let them soak for at least half an hour. Rinse the corn husks several times, to clean them.

Then drain them well. Next, dry off the corn husks. While you do this, you can separate them into piles: big husks, medium, and too little to be worth using. At this time, you can also prepare some thin strips of corn husk, that you will use to tie the tamales together. (This is where you you the little pieces too small to make a tamale.) (I found that the pieces weren't long enogh to tie around the tamales, so I tied two shorter pieces of thin husk together. More on this later.) Make the tamales: Hold a large corn husk in your hand, with the narrow end pointing to the right. Take a spoonful of dough (I used a serving spoon, about 2 Tbs or so) and spread it on the corn husk, about 1-1/2 inches from the wide end, and about 4 inches from the narrow end.

If there is not enough husk to wrap around to the back, place another corn husk around the tamale, to hold the edge closed. Now, wrap the top (broad end) edge down, and flip the bottom part (the narrow end) up, so that it covers the edge of the broad end. Then, using the thin strips of corn husk, tie across the middle to hold the top and bottom flaps in place. Steaming the tamales: Stand the tamales on end in a steamer. If you don't have a steamer, you could put the tamales in a metal collander, and place the collander in a large pot. Just be sure that the tamales do not touch the water below. Bring the water to a brisk boil, and steam the tamales for at least an hour. I did i