Legendary Smoked Pork Tamales

    I've done it! I've created one of the best recipes that makes me salivate every time I think about it. Smoked. Pork. Tamales.

    I grew up in a part of Iowa that was getting some authentic Mexican recipe influence. This gave me high expectations anywhere we got Mexican food. My husband and I really enjoy authentic Mexican tacos. We moved to Wisconsin where more of the cultural influence tends to be authentic Hmong recipes. All fantastic!

    Some of the hardest tacos to find by me are carnitas, suadero, goat birria (or any birria), cabeza and cochinita pibil. I have a huge admiration to anybody by us that make these tacos. Carnitas is one of my favorites. We make some at home in the instant pot. I save much of the fat from this to render lard that is used in my smoked pork tamales recipe. I tend to use as much homemade items in this recipe: the Lard, Chicken Stock and Smoked Pork Butt are all done in advance. You can choose if you want to make these from scratch or get them all at the store. You can also try different fats from lard like vegetable shortening, etc. You are the master to this creation.

    When I moved to Wisconsin with my husband, I realized I had never had a tamale. Tamales are traditionally served for Christmas in Mexico. I really felt like I was missing out. I rolled up my sleeves and searched for a good pork tamale recipe. At that time, pork wasn't a meat that I had a lot of. I grew up with very little pork products due to my mom avoiding it. I wanted to expand my horizons. Boy did I miss out all those years! I found a great tamale recipe. I bought way too many peppers and corn husks. I ran into the trouble that the original guajillo chilies were not there at the store. We settled for puya chilies since so looked up what could be substituted. We fell in love ever since. I liked the pork tamale recipe we had but felt that I could really change it with some smoked pork. This was a total game changer. I simply cannot do this any other way. I've had some other people try these smoked pork tamales and they tell me these are better than some of the ones they get elsewhere.

    I bought a good size electric smoker from one of my coworkers a few years ago. He had put the whole thing together and never used it. Never used! He knew who to ask! The first thing I tried smoking in this smoker was pork butt. I learned then that I really should have left the fat cap on it. I had a great mix for wood to use so my first pork butt was still great. The fat kept on makes pork butt legendary. Now I just score the fat cap so it renders easily into the meat. I usually use a blend of the competition wood pellets from Lumber Jack (maple, hickory, cherry) and then some apple wood chips. I go between 2 recipes for my smoked pork butt. One is big jame's pork rub (https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/222157/big-james-pork-rub/) the other is a sweet rub from kitchen dreaming (https://kitchendreaming.com/sweet-bbq-rub-recipe/). You can use whatever rub you'd like in this recipe. I'm the kind of person that smokes meat and will save a bunch of it for later recipes when I get the motivation for it.

    I needed to get this recipe to you folks and make it immortal. I haven't posted a recipe in years because I had been so busy. I had to come back with something legendary for you. Enjoy!

SMOKED PORK TAMALES

MEAT MIXTURE:

Prepared Shredded and Smoked Pork Butt from about a 3 1/2 lb roast (I usually eyeball this from an 8lb roast)

1 medium white onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

MASA DOUGH:

3/4 C Lard

6 C Masa Harina

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

6 C Chicken Stock/Broth (plus more for consistency)

ENCHILADA SAUCE:

15 Dried Puya Chilies

4-5 Garlic Cloves

2 tsp Ground Cumin

1 tsp Salt

2 tsp Flour

2 tsp Lard

50 Corn Husks

Saute White Onion and Minced Garlic on stove with enough oil/fat and salt to taste. Cook until Onions sweat. Mix Onion with Pulled Pork. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees f. Remove stems and seeds from dried chilies (leaving some seeds for more heat if desired). Place chilies in a single layer on baking sheet. Roast 2-5 minutes or until you smell a sweet aroma. Remove from oven and soak in hot water for 30 minutes or until cool. Put chilies and 2 1/2 C of the chili soaking water in a blender. Save the remaining soaking water. To the blender, add the rest of the garlic, cumin and salt. Blend until smooth. Set aside.

In a 2 qt Sauce Pan, stir Flour and Lard over Medium heat until browned. Carefully stir in blended Chili mixture. Simmer uncovered for 5-10 minutes or until slightly thickened. If sauce gets too thick, add some of the soaking liquid to desired consistency.

Warm up enchilada sauce with meat and onion mixture. Soak corn husks for at least 20 minutes.

To prepare the masa dough, beat Lard on medium speed for 1 minute in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix Mass Harina, Baking Powder, and 2 tsp Salt. Alternately add Masa mix and Stock/Broth into bowl of whipped Lard, mixing in each time. Add just enough Stock/Broth to create a thick creamy paste.

To assemble the Tamales, spread 2 Tbsp of Masa mixture in the center of the corn husk. Each husk should be about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide at the top. If husks are small, overlap 2 of them to get to size. If the husks are too big, rip them off the side. Place about 1 Tbsp of meat and sauce mixture in the middle of the masa. Fold in sides of husk and fold up the bottom.

Place a foil ball in the middle of a dutch oven. Lean tamales in pot with open ends at the top. Add water to dutch oven (just below a basket if you have one. If not, adding some water (1 inch or 2) is necessary and won't destroy your tamales. Bring water to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cover and steam 40 minutes, adding water when needed so they don't burn. Stay close as the burning can happen easily. Remove from pot and check to see if masa dough firms up enough to stay together. Remove all tamales from pot so they don't sit in water if you don't have a basket. Enjoy.

Tamales reheat very well and can be made ahead of time. To reheat, wrap each tamale in a damp paper towel and microwave for 2 minutes or until hot.