Anna's Chicken Tamales

Anna's Chicken Tamales


Ingredients

30 dried corn husks

1 chicken 

3 quarts water

2 teaspoons salt

Dough:

4 cups masa harina (corn flour MASECA)

3 cups of chicken broth and the rest water as you need to make the dough a past like consistency 

Red pepper sauce:

4 dried red chile Anchos or your favorite kind

Water

1 onion

3 whole garlic cloves

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1/2 teaspoon of salt, more to taste

1 teaspoon of texmex seasoning

Sometimes i can't get the dried red peppers:

Then i just add a to the chicken, instead of the red pepper sauce. 
  
A cup of the chicken broth 
Five tablespoons of sweet chili powder
A pinch of hot chili powder
Three tablespoons of garlic powder 
Five tablespoons of texmex seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

In a steamer, cover the chicken with water, salt then bring to a boil. Reduce heat, steam for 10 minutes or until meat is tender, or just boil the chicken in a regular pot. Remove chicken from broth, set aside until cool enough to handle. Strain broth skim fat, remove and toss the skin and shred chicken off the bone.

Add the chile anchos, onion and garlic to a small saucepan add enough water so that they are just covered. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes, until the chilies have softened and plumped up.

Reserving the soaking water, remove the chilies onion and garlic from the pan and place in a blender. Add the salt, pepper and teaspoon of texmex seasoning.1 1/2 cups of the soaking liquid.

Purée for 2 minutes, until the sauce is completely smooth, taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. If you want more heat, add a bit of paprika or cayenne pepper and purée some more.

Mix shredded cooked chicken with red pepper Purée.

Place corn husks in a large bowl and cover with hot water.

For dough, in a large bowl, mix 3 cups reserved chicken broth and water with masa harina mix until well blended.

Drain corn husks. Place a corn husk on a work surface, make a small ball out of the dough and press flat with a tortilla press or baking dish, lay the tortilla shaped dough into the husk, add a spoon or tow of the meat mixture and fold it.

In a steamer basket, position tamales upright.  Place basket over 2-3 inches of water. Bring to a boil, cover and steam for 15-20 minutes or until dough peels away from husk, if the pot boils dry add additional hot water to pat as needed. 

They freeze well before you steam them, but when you steam them from frozen you just have to stem them ten minutes longer. 

They also freeze well after you steam them, i keep a sip lock beg of steamed ones in the freezer to take to work for lunch.  They worm up nice in the microwave oven still inside the husk.