Little time left for cooking? Too pragmatic to deal with the husks? Otherwise uninclined to get busy in the kitchen? No biggie! These insanely delicious Easy Huskless Tamales, prepared in a jiffy and ready to eat in under 30 minutes, will nicely do the job with flying colors!
I know! We have been waxing poetic about tamales for the better part of this year and that is why we can’t stay away from them for too long. By the way, check out this recipe for when you want to make tamales the traditional way.
Now, this particular post was El Gringo’s idea. Always practical, the love of my life came up with the basics for this recipe and even ordered the mini loaf pan (details of pan in the recipe notes) for the specific purpose of having me make them (yup, other than making the yearly occasional pasta, and providing plenty of unsolicited opinions regarding various and sundry food-related subjects like a boss, he really doesn’t like to go into the kitchen).
In other words, his wish is my command. He speaks, I listen (1/10 of the time, if and when the idea is good, ahem, ahem)!
Anyway, after making this variation of the traditional Tamal my conclusion is that they were fast to prepare, with significantly little oven-to-mouth time.
These Easy Huskless Tamales are baked, not steamed, which makes them slightly drier but very tasty. In brief, whenever we are craving tamales but don’t have much time to deal with the somewhat lengthy traditional process, we make this recipe.
Although the husks do preserve some moisture in the tamales this recipe has this going for it: these tamales will be ready faster than you can say “Andale!!!“.
Notes
I used a 15″ x 10″ mini-loaf pan with 8 cavities. You do end up using more batter to fill them up as they will be bigger than the traditional Mexican steamed Tamales.
Ingredients
- For the tamales:
- 2 cups masa harina
- 1 1/3 cups chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2/3 cup shortening
- For the tamal filling:
- 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast
- 1 1/2 cups of tomato sauce
- 1 cup canned yellow corn
- 1 cup Mexican blend cheese
- 1 cup Mexican or sour cream
- 1 large seedless, deveined, Poblano chile, julienned (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 350F.
- Slightly grease your mini-loaf pan.
- In a large bowl mix masa harina, baking powder and salt.
- Add the chicken broth and mix with your hands until the dough is soft and moist.
- In a different bowl whip the shortening until fluffy. I use a wire whisk.
- Start mixing the dry ingredients into the shortening gradually, using your hands until the batter is smooth and somewhat sticky.
- Evenly distribute the batter into each mini loaf pan cavity and fill the bottom and sides pressing lightly with your fingers.
- Fill each cavity with some shredded chicken, next spoon some tomato sauce, add corn and top with cheese, cream and sliced Poblano chile .
- If you so desire, you can cover the tamales with more batter like I did, topping it with more shredded cheese, cream and more sauce, or just leave them open-faced.
- Bake for 30 – 40 minutes (depending on your oven) until the masa is golden and the cheese has melted.
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