easy to make spicy red pork filling made in the crock pot perfect for homemade tamales. It's easier to make these red pork tamales than you think and so worth it.
Course dinner
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword pork tamale, tamale
Prep Time 50 minutesminutes
Cook Time 9 hourshours
marinade 3 hourshours
Total Time 12 hourshours50 minutesminutes
Servings 50tamales
Calories 50kcal
Author Ashlee Marie
Ingredients
Red pork filling
3½lbsboneless pork shoulder or Boston buttcut into 3-inch chunks and trimmed
Soak the red chilies in hot water until they are soft. Weight them down, to keep them soaking
Toast your bay leaves however you like. I cooked them in a dry skillet over low heat on the stove.
Your chilies should be nice and soft now, put them in a blender or food processor, but retain the chile water (use gloves or tongs)
Add the garlic, onion, thyme, marjoram, oregano, salt and pepper with the chilies to the blender and blend until smooth.
If it's too thick or not blending well add some of your chile water to the blender. I used about half a cup
In a large enough bowl so the meat can be covered (or in a large gallon size zip-lock freezer bag, like me), add the cubed pork, bay leaves and smother with the chile mix so that it can marinate for a minimum of 3 hours.
After marinating for a sufficient amount of time, add the meat and the chile mixture to your slow cooker and cook on low overnight (or all day depending on what time your going to make your tamales, you want a good 8 hours).
When it's done shred the pork and your ready to fill your tamales!
Tamales
soak the corn husks in water until soft
whisk the Maseca, baking powder and salt together
add the broth and combine
in a separate bowl beat the lard until fluffy
add add most of the beaten lard to the maseca mixture and combine with your hands - mix until the texture feels right - this might take a little playing - add more lard as needed
keep a damp paper towel over the dough your not using to keep it from drying out
roll a ball about 1 1/2 inches wide, flatten it (I use a tortilla press with a plastic bag) - if the texture is right the flattened circle won't break or crack, if it does add more whipped lard
dry a corn husk, and place the flattened circle in the corn husk
fill with a few Tablespoons of filling and fold one side, then the other over the filling, then fold up the bottom and press closed. I recommend using the corn husk vs your hands - try not to touch the filling.
wrap the corn husk around and fold up the bottom and use the husk to fold and press the top dough down, seal.
Steaming
stack the wrapped tamales chimney style in a large steamer
add a damp towel over the top and steam for 1 hour - text to see if they are done - they might need to steam for an extra 30 mins.