In my last post I was making tamales from a new recipe and I promised an update the next day. Well I lied, I didn't get to it the next day, or the day after that. Or the day after that either. I'm awful, I know it.

The tamales were good and really easy to make. Usually tamales for my wife and I end up destorying the entire kitchen and leaves about a zillion dishes needing washed. This wasn't like that at all since the liquid you use to cook the chicken in also makes the sauce, the binder for the masa, and, once thinned out, the steaming liquid. Very efficient! Also I learned that the trick to making those damn corn husks work correctly is not to just soak them in hot water, you gotta boil them. Usually I just get the hottest water from the sink and toss in the the husks and then struggle while trying to manage them. This recipe called for boiling the water, turning it off, then throwing in the husks and letting them sit in the boiling water for 45 minutes. Longer time innitially but it was more than made up for in the ease of handling.

The finished product were good. Not fantastic but I know what to do to fix it. See the tamales were small, only about as big around as a quarter. This really wasn't that big of a deal as it also made the tamales easier to assemble and the recipe made about 3 dozen tamales. Thing is, they were a bit dry. Not that tamales are really that moist to begin with but these were dry. Next time I'm going to put some tamatillo sauce inside (my wife makes a killer tamatillo sauce) and save a little extra to go on the top of the finished tamales. That should not only solve the dry problem but will also bring a nice flavor to the party. Maybe mole (moe-lay, not the little underground critter) sauce would be good too. I'll keep posting updates with my experiments.