Tag: masa harina

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With tamale casserole, mi ‘masa’ es su ‘masa’

Chicken tamale casserole gives you all the traditional flavors and textures of tamales without all the time and effort in the kitchen.
Chicken tamale casserole gives you all the traditional flavors and textures of tamales without all the time and effort in the kitchen.

One of our friends likes to say that he won’t order foods from a restaurant that are easy to make at home. Instead, he tries to order dishes that he would never make for himself.

The list includes plenty of time-consuming, delicious meals.

For me, one of those items is tamales.

I did make tamales once. They were awesome. But it was also when we were stuck at home for the pandemic, and time was a little easier to find. Someday, I’ll do it again.

In the meantime, though, I have been satisfying those cravings by ordering tamales from our great local Mexican spots. Except now I have a way to get the same flavor profile with none of the intense work, thanks to a tamale-themed casserole.

This comes from the blog “Life Made Simple.” You can find the original post at https://lifemadesimplebakes.com/chile-verde-chicken-tamale-casserole-9/. I added extra sauce, extra cheese and extra garlic powder in mine.

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Chicken Tamale Casserole

Chicken tamale casserole gives you all the traditional flavors and textures of tamales without all the time and effort in the kitchen.
Course Main Course
Keyword chicken, chile verde, cilantro, corn, enchilada sauce, fresh cilantro, frozen corn, garlic powder, masa harina, Monterrey jack cheese, poblano peppers, rotisserie chicken, tamales

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 rotisserie chicken deboned and shredded
  • 1 cup chicken broth or stock
  • 19 ounce can chile verde enchilada sauce divided
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro chopped (plus more for serving)
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 4 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese divided

Tamale Dough Ingredients

  • 3 cups masa harina
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 12 tablespoons cold butter cubed
  • 3 cups frozen corn thawed, divided
  • 1 roasted poblano pepper deseeded and diced
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 1/4 cup chicken broth or stock

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a nine-by-13-inch deep baking dish by spraying it with cooking spray, and set it aside.
  • Add the chicken, broth, half of the sauce, cilantro and garlic powder to a large skillet. Heat it over medium-low, stirring occasionally, while you prepare the tamale layers.
  • Add the masa, sugar, baking powder, butter, two cups of corn, the poblano, salt and pepper to a food processor or blender. Process until everything is in coarse crumbs. Add the broth and process until the mixture is smooth and thick. Fold in the remaining corn.
  • Spread half of the tamale mixture evenly across the bottom of your baking dish. Sprinkle about one and one-fourth cup of cheese over that. Add in all of the chicken mixture, spreading it out over the cheese layer. Add another one and one-fourth cup of cheese. Spread the rest of the tamale mixture on the top.
  • Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce on the top, and then finish with the rest of the cheese.
  • Cover the dish with aluminum foil, and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes.
  • Serve topped with more chopped cilantro. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

This was absolutely delicious, and it reheated phenomenally. (Thank goodness, because it makes a ton of food.) All of the flavors of a good, chicken tamale were there, and we will definitely be making this again—much sooner than I’ll probably be making traditional tamales.

As a side note, I roasted my poblano by placing it under the broiler until it was charred on all sides and then placing it in a glass bowl with plastic wrap on top to steam for about 10 minutes. Then, I could scrape off the skin, scoop out the seeds and dice it up. Easy peasy. If you’re nervous about a poblano being too spicy, try an Anaheim pepper instead.

Now that I have a good copycat for tamales, I’ll have to explore some other tough dishes at our local restaurants. I’m looking at you, mole.

This piece first appeared in print Sept. 12, 2024.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

The food choices surprised us ‘Honduran’ this trip

Pupusas are a Central American tradition, featuring warm corn cakes stuffed with cheese, meat or beans.
Pupusas are a Central American tradition, featuring warm corn cakes stuffed with cheese, meat or beans.

Earlier this summer, while on a trip to Kentucky for a conference, Joey and I asked around to the locals where we should grab lunch in Frankfort.

One of the recurring suggestions was to visit a little Honduran restaurant, Mami Monchita’s.

I don’t know what food genre I expected people in Kentucky to recommend, but I am certain it wasn’t Central American.

That being said, our policy to always trust the locals on where to eat paid off. The meal was absolutely fabulous, and I’ve been a bit obsessed with trying to cook something Honduran at home ever since.

While there, I ordered a meal that included pupusas, which “World Vision” explains thusly on its website, “Take masa harina—a special flour made from corn that’s been soaked in lime water—and add salt and water to create a dough. Roll it out and fill with cheese, beans or pork. Lightly fry in a pan until both sides are golden.”

So, this week, I finally decided to take the plunge into making my own pupusas, and while I’ll still need plenty of practice to be as good at it as the folks in Frankfort, these did not disappoint.

The recipe I used comes from the blog “Tara’s Multicultural Table.” You can find the original post on https://tarasmulticulturaltable.com/pupusas-de-queso-salvadoran-cheese-stuffed-tortillas/. I added pork to my version and used cheese I could find locally.

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Pupusas

Pupusas are a Central American tradition, featuring warm corn cakes stuffed with cheese, meat or beans.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Central American, Honduran
Keyword beans, masa harina, Monterrey jack cheese, pupusa, quesillo, shredded beef, shredded chicken, shredded pork

Ingredients

  • 2 cups masa harina
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 3/4 cups warm water
  • 6 ounces shredded quesillo or Monterrey jack cheese
  • 6 ounces shredded cooked pork, chicken or beef
  • 2-6 tablespoons oil I used canola

Instructions

  • In a mixing bowl, combine the masa harina, salt and water.
  • Mix until the dough comes together and you can shape it with your hands. You want it to be just moist enough that it doesn’t crack when you flatten it out. (Add more water, just a little at a time, if it’s too dry, or add more masa if it’s too wet.)
  • Form the dough into six balls of roughly equal size.
  • To make a pupusa, carefully flatten a ball of dough in your palm to about one-half inch in thickness. Place about a tablespoon each of cheese and meat into the center, and then squish the sides up around the filling to form a ball again.
  • To finish it up, gently flatten the dough back out to a disc with your hands until it is about one-quarter-inch thick, and set it aside on a plate. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
  • In a skillet, heat a tablespoon of oil over medium heat.
  • When the pan is hot, add as many pupusas as will easily fit in the pan. Let them cook several minutes and form golden brown blistered spots before flipping them to the other side. When the second side is golden, remove them to a plate. Continue until all of the pupusas are cooked, adding oil as necessary.
  • Serve with salsa or, for a traditional dish, curtido, which is a pickled slaw.

We really enjoyed these. I would say that if you enjoy the flavor of tamales, you would like pupusas, too. You can also add beans to this if you like or do any combination of cheese, beans and/or meat that you like. One of these days, I’m going to make curtido to go along with these. (There is a recipe for it at the same website link above.) We served ours with a spicy, homemade tomatillo salsa, along with some Mexican rice, and it was a delicious dinner.

I will definitely be making these again.

And if you’re wondering if it’s strange for a boring lady in Kansas to cook Honduran recipes in her kitchen, I’d say it’s probably fine. If Kentucky can get away with it, I reckon I can, too.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 24, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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