Texans of Boston: Your tamale search is over

Compared to some of the distances you have to drive around Texas, Boston to Revere or Everett is negligible.

Says the person in Cambridge…

I'm a Texan living on the Cape. You best your ass I'm going to get to one of these locations next time I'm up toward the Boston area.

Nah, it's just a ad

ill try but you gotta remember my mom taught me how to make these and they literally take all day to make:

meat filling: i usually do this first. boil a big pork butt (aka shoulder not an actual butt) with carrots and onion and cumin and garlic and bay leaves for a few hours until very tender. let cool then shred it up. strain and keep the broth.

meat sauce: devein and de seed a ton of dried new mexico and california chilies and about 10-20 chili de árboles depending on how spicy you like it. boil them for about 20-30 mins or very tender and blend them with about 2-4 cups of fresh water depending on how many chilies you boiled it will vary. i recommend adding water slowly until you get a good saucey consistency. if it’s too runny don’t worry because you’re going to strain this sauce to get out the skins and seeds and then thicken it in a sauce pan with a butter flour roux. simmer until it’s a nice flavor and thicnkess. mix into the shredded pork. salt

rajas con queso: roast fresh pasillas on a grill until charred then transfer to a plastic bag or tight fitting tupperware to steam for easy skin removal. remove skin and seeds from the top and dice these up. i usually make a salsa quemada while i’m doing this as i love it on top. google that or ask me later. get some oaxaca cheese. stuff tamales with a spoonful of rajas and a few strings of cheese. sometimes i add a spot if hot sauce too if the pasillas aren’t spicy.

masa: the hardest AND easiest part. i use Maseca brand para tamal and go by the instructions. it’s very important that you use the best quality lard you can get (i render my own) and it should be melted and warm but not hot. the broth also must be warm but not hot. you’ll need to add both incrementally until you get a good consistency which is almost impossible to describe here. aim for the increments in that bag and you should land fairly close. try youtube for this. it should be spreadable but not too wet and greasy but not too greasy. like i said try youtube. when you get it right, the masa is the best part.

assembly: also hard to describe. try youtube here too. you gotta soak your hojas and size them properly. there’s always a bunch in the bag that are too small to use. spread a layer of masa, add some fillings (either meat, rajas con queso, or both), fold/roll them closed then fold the bottom “tail” up. some people use a little string of hoja to tie them up but if you sized it well you shouldn’t need it. that said don’t stress it. building is the fun part and my family is always all around the table, everyone building including the kids (how do you think i learned!) drinking and talking. don’t stress about it and tie it when you need to. invite everyone in your house to join or invite friends over! a bag of masa makes dozens of small tamales. i usually give a ton away and i even sell them most years (let me know if you’re interested!). i also eat my weight in them.

steaming: i should’ve put this earlier but make sure to steam the first couple you make to make sure you dialed the masa in correctly. they need to steam about 45 mins. this gives you time to clean up the huge mess you made and take a much needed break. then you can correct the masa as needed after you taste the tester batch. this is usually my families first meal of them on noche buena or the night before and w all discuss what’s needed.

i like to add a layer of junk hojas to the bottom of the steamer to keep everyone safe from splatters.

um dm me for pointers if you end up committing a day to this. also dm me if you wanna be lazy and just buy some lol. i will say that it’s absolutely worth all the effort. they are some of my favorite things to eat in the whole world.

cheers!

Gotta sound out those three syllable words

Everything reminds me of him

There are but I’m not one of them. I just spent 4 years in the southwest and developed a taste for tamales. Especially the ones sold out of an old minivan in parking lots.

There's dozens of us!

Oh sweet! Cold tamales at three times the price!

Do you remember how much a dozen are?

There is a really good Mexican restaurant I go to for tamales in Boston but I miss being able to get a baggie of 6 tamales for $5 or 6 before I moved to Boston.

Thank you so much! Do customers need to put in an order before or they have a lot of made-to-order already? I want to get a tray of tamales like what you got!

sorry for bombarding you with so many questions!