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                                                             Ana Zahler             xiyvza@hotmail.com

TAMALE RECIPE OUT OF COSTA RICA

Introduction:

There are traditional Costarrican meals that we miss a lot when we are far

from our country. One of them is the tamale. We want to taste them very badly,

specially when the ingredients are not handy and Christmas is around the

corner. Today, I share 2 experiments done with American ingredients to obtain

Costarrican tamales out of Costa Rica.

Costarrican ingredient substitute

white corn dough grits or polenta *

Lizano sauce Worcestershire or A1 steak sauce

big carrots chopped carrots w/ peas **

banana leaves to wrap baking pan, Pyrex or foil paper

***

achiote (1) Maggi or Knor chicken broth ****,

mustard or tomato sauce

encurtido (2) giardiniera

bomba or 7 spices Mrs. Dash

You select: chicken or pork. I always marinate the meat w/ Lizano sauce, BBQ

sauce and Italian herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, dill, basil, marjoram and

sage) 30 minutes before to cook it. Then, I fry it in canola or soy oil at

medium heat and stir constantly for about 5 minutes. Add enough water to get some

broth. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour. Let it cool and drain very well.

I use the broth from the meat to cook the rice in. If it is not enough, well,

ad water to the rice and a teaspoon of Mrs. Dash. You can prepare the rice in

the microwave. I always ad chopped white onions and garlic also. However,

they can be garlic paste or onion and garlic salt.

The stuffing ... oh! The stuffing is so personal. The usual is: yellow orange

rice (you can color the rice with mustard or tomato paste), fresh green beans

boiled and cut in 2, slices or battened carrot (they must be boiled) and

sweet red bell pepper stripes (don't use green bell pepper, yea the color it's

very important).

Other ingredients I saw in the stuffing: slices of fresh tomato, yellow onion

or hard boiled egg; plain or stuffed Spanish olives, encurtido (2), raisins,

prunes, peas, garbanzo beans, capers.

There are not banana or plantain leaves to wrap the tamale, so I had the idea

to do a tamale pie... In a greased pan I spread half of the dough (grits or

polenta). I put the meat and the stuffing on top of the dough. Then spread the

other half of the dough on top, cover w/ foil paper and bake 45 minutes to 1

hour at F 350, it depends on how powerful the oven is. If you bake it, the

dough has to be very soft, so it won't dry during the baking. Please don't use the

microwave because I experimented and it didn't work. I got something like

tamale pudding...

I tried this other procedure and it worked, in spite it requires a lot of

patient (but not as much as Job) and time. Cut big pieces of foil paper, bigger

than the size of a tamale. Fold each piece in the middle and open them like a

book. In the bottom half, put 2 big tablespoons of the dough, spread a little

but DON'T go to the edges. Put 3 pieces of meat, rice and the vegetables. Then,

cover it with the other half of the foil paper (like closing a book) and seal

the 3 open edges. They should be folded 3 times to avoid the dough coming

out. Now, you can put each tamale on a cookie sheet and bake them (like doing

cookies). I bake them at F 375 for about 30 minutes. The size and the quantity of

the tamales make the baking time. Also, you can put them carefully in a pot

w/ boiling water. Cook them for 30 minutes and enjoy them with a good aguadulce

(3) or hot chocolate in these cold days of the year.

There is not aguadulce? Well, if you boil brown sugar and water you may get a

Costarrican aguadulce out of Costa Rica. Also, you can buy "piloncillo" in a

Mexican supermarket; this product is similar to the compacted brown sugar but

smaller. Let me tell you something else: for an out of the world chocolate,

boil cinnamon sticks in the milk or ad cinnamon powder; also a dash of nutmeg

and few drops of vanilla. The single ladies don't tell you didn't find out

husband with this recipe.

* Prepare according w/ the manufactured instructions. Let's use canned

chicken broth instead of water to obtain a better flavor. However, the beef broth

would dark the color of the white corn dough. You can strain the dough in any

cotton fabric, if you use to. The polenta is light orange color and kind of

sweet but the texture is ideal. Don't bake it as it is indicated in the box; just

boil it.

** Definitively, frozen veggies have better flavor than the canned ones. You

have to thaw in the refrigerator and strain very well before to use them. I

use to sauté them in butter to improve the flavor.

*** Rectangular or square. DON'T use the grill bags.

**** You can find them out in a Mexican supermarket.

____________________________________________

(1) paste obtained from the fruit of a plant with the same name. Achiote it's

use to color the food in yellow or orange. It's the equivalent of saffron in

Spain.

(2) it's like a giardiniera, except it doesn't have oil, Spanish olive or

any kind of pepper

(3) traditional beverage in Costa Rica