Tamales by Chef Gustavo Romero

- This is like a little present.

- You get to unwrap it and see what's in there.

- Oh.

This is one of the most tender, fluffy, tamales I've ever had.

(mariachi music) Gustavo Romero, chef.

This is such a beautiful array of corn and I'm really excited because it's something that I'm not really familiar with.

- Today, we're going to make tamales, and then, we're going to go through the whole process.

Starting from the nixtamalization, the grinding, making the dough, and then, eating some tamales.

- Awesome.

I think here in the States, a lot of people, when they think corn, they just think yellow corn right?

- The U.S. is one of the biggest producers of corn, in the world, by far, but Mexico happens to be where corn started.

We have about 60 different types of edible corn.

And one of the reasons, there is a big movement with Mexican chefs, trying to promote the usage of edible corn, is because it's getting lost.

This is part of our culture, you know, this is the base of Mexican cooking.

If you go to every household in Mexico at meal time, you will find something made out of corn.

In every house.

So if we lose this, then, we lose everything.

- Growing up, did you use all these varieties of corn?

- Not all of them.

I grew up in central Mexico.

So all the ones that you see kind of long, those are from central Mexico.

Those are gonna be kind of easy to cook, super soft, perfect for tortillas.

The small ones, they're a little tougher, harder to grind, so they're perfect for tamales.

Your masa for tamales, you want it to be a little grainy, so it has that bite.

- So, talk me through the process.

Is it just you soak the corn, and then you just grind it up and use it?

- We start with a nixtamalization.

- Okay, and what's that?

For people who don't know.

- Nixtamalization comes from an Aztec word, nix, which means ash.

When they started cooking corn, they figured out, that if they add the ashes from wood, it would alkalinize, and it would become edible.

And then, eventually, with industrialization, they started using limestone.

(knife chopping) We cut a piece of the rock, we put in water, to essentially boil it.

It activates it, and then, after that, we use corn.

- I'm thinking about the first people who have done this.

Right?

Who would've thought?

Like to take ashes, and put it in there, like the science behind it, but not realizing what they were doing.

And, that's incredible that today you're still using the same techniques.

- So we rinse it, so we remove all of the little skin, so now, it's clean, it's totally edible.

So we're gonna put everything in the grinder.

You just pour it on top.

It might jump a little.

- Why is it important for you to share about corn, and what it means to you?

- You know for me it started a very long time ago when I first moved to the states.

And I remember very clearly, the first time they said, we're going to go to a Mexican restaurant.

You know I was very happy, I was super excited, we got to the Mexican restaurant, live music, it was beautiful.

And then, we got our food, and it was not the food that we knew.

And the one thing that I remember, it was grabbing the tortilla and just being like this is not what it's supposed to be.

And when I moved to Minnesota, I realized that, all the tortillerias, they have machines to do tortillas with flour.

But nobody actually does the nixtamalization.

And so, I saw a necessity to show people what we actually eat there.

I think as a Mexican chef, I need to show people what our culture really is.

Perfect.

For what we're going to do today, this is exactly what we need.

We need it to be a little loose.

We need it to have a good consistency cause that's gonna give the bite to the tamales.

For the tamales, we are going to add lard or fat.

I have a friend that tells me that if the Aztecs would've had butter, they would've used butter instead.

But, we didn't have butter.

I'm a lard fan.

- I'm a lard fan too.

Yeah, bro.

- So, we're going to add about 20% of the weight of the flour, we're going to add it in fat.

I know it seems like a lot, but you're going to thank me later.

- Hey, I'm thanking you now.

- And then, all we want to do is whip it until its soft.

The reason that we do this, is that we're trying to incorporate air into the fat, so that our tamales are fluffier and soft.

(blender whirs) All right.

So you can see, it's almost like a whipped cream.

- More delicious whipped cream.

- Yes, definitely more delicious.

We're going to add our milled flour and then, you will add salt at this point, but since our lard is already seasoned, we're not going to add any salt.

And then, we're just going to let it incorporate it.

And at this point we're going to add our liquid.

This time, we have some chicken stock.

And then the texture that we want, the runnier the tamale mixture is, the softer your tamale is gonna be.

- Okay.

- To me, it almost resembles like a soft hummus.

- Oh okay, yeah that makes sense.

- You're going to see, when we put it on the leaf, we kind of want that smear.

- So I think a lot of people think that with some types of tamales, that it's almost like a dough.

You know?

But, it's runny.

- Yeah.

When you think about it, the steam kind of dries it.

- Yep.

- All right, so we are good to go with our dough.

- Does this come with just consistently working with this and knowing what you're looking for?

- You know this, with ethnic cuisines, there's not a true recipe to anything.

So it's really about the feel and the texture.

And you kind of learn, after time, what are you looking for.

- And I think that makes food so personal, right?

Cause you're really, you have to be involved.

- Exactly.

So if you see the batter, then you can kind of play with it.

And it's just kind of like a smear texture to it.

- Yeah, you're right.

A soft hummus.

That's what I'm thinking of right when I see this.

You know?

- We're going to make some pork and chicken tamales.

- Okay, you do it first.

I get real nervous with the smear.

- With the smear?

So, very easy.

So we're going to start grabbing it, we're going to grab a leaf.

And then, we're just going to grab a little bit of the dough and then you're just going to smear all over there.

And then, you kind of want to keep it on the middle, and I'll show you why.

- These are corn husks right?

- These are corn husks.

Yes.

- And then you just put them in water to rehydrate them?

- I usually use hot water cause it just makes it softer and more pliable, but that's all you need.

So after you have your spread, then we add our stuffing.

- So this one's the chicken?

- That is the chicken.

And then, you want it to look good.

You want it to have something.

- You want to give it a little oomph.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You want to, I mean.

- But it's a chicken tamale after all.

- Right.

And then, add some extra sauce.

- For that sauce, that's the sauce you cook the chicken in.

- Right.

And then, you just want to wrap, and then, you close it.

- Okay.

And you fold the bottom.

- And you fold the bottom.

And that's why you want to keep it in the center cause if you put it too lowered, you won't be able to fold it, and if you put it too high, it will come out.

- Okay.

- And then, we just lay them down on our steamer.

So yeah give it a shot, yeah.

- Oh man, I'm kind of nervous man.

Just like right in the middle here?

- Right in the middle.

- You almost like create a little bowl in the middle.

- Right.

You want to give it a little bit of space where the stuff that you're going to put in there is going to be.

That's perfect.

Yep.

- You get the sauce.

Tell me a little bit more about tamales and what does it resonate inside of you?

- It's mostly for special occasions.

We eat them at Christmas, we eat them on birthdays, you know, celebrations.

That's pretty much when the tamales come in.

The family gets together, everybody brings something, and then, everybody sits down and makes tamales.

Tamale has a big, big history in Mexican cuisine.

We always say that it's our Mexican energy bar.

- Yeah.

- It has everything that you need, you know?

It has a lot of protein because of the meat, and it has a lot of carbs.

They just get you going for a whole day.

(pot rattles) - How do you know when it's done?

- So they steam for about 45 minutes, and then you want to touch them.

When they start to feel, it has a point where they get firm, and then they get soft again because of the fat content.

And then, they're just ready to eat.

(plate clinks) - Aw dude.

This is one of the most tender, fluffy tamales, I've ever had.

I've had some where it's very dense.

But, man, that whipping of that lard, you can taste that.

Who taught you how to make tamales?

- Well, the funny thing is, I wasn't allowed to be in the kitchen growing up.

You know, I grew up in a family where the men would go to work and they would do chores in the field, and the women would stay in the house and cook and the meals were always spectacular, but I never learned how to cook from them.

I think a lot of the cooking that I do is kind of trying to recreate those memories that I have of the food that I ate.

When I started cooking Mexican food, it just comes natural.

And then, you know what you want, so you just keep trying and trying, until you get it right.

- Yeah.

There's almost this like soul care to your own heart when you're doing it.

- For me, cooking Mexican food is what it's all about.

If I'm making a mole, if I'm making tamales.

While I'm making these, the memories, they come to my head like the smells, the sensation, that's why I like to cook.

The one thing, tamales are also different shapes, so we're going to probably do a different shape with this one.

- Oh dude you got that fancy stuff going.

- And then, it looks like a little present.

- Oh my gosh.

I'm going to stick with this one.

This is the one I know.