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Hot Tamales

A cornmeal tamale filled with chicken, Spanish pepper, onion, cloves, and bay leaves, cooked over a chicken bone broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Hot Tamales

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Sift 1 quart of cornmeal, keeping it moist but not soft.

  2. Prepare corn husks and tear several into narrow strips.

  3. In a bowl, mix chopped chicken, chopped Spanish pepper, and salt.

Assemble the tamales

  1. Take a handful of cornmeal, press it down, and place it in a corn husk to form a 6‑inch roll.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of the chicken mixture into the center of the cornmeal roll.

  3. Roll the husk over the filling and fold the ends, tying them with the prepared strips.

Cook and serve

  1. In a kettle, place chicken bones, sliced onion, cloves, bay leaves, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.

  2. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Place the tamales on top of the bones to keep them above the water.

  4. Cook for 2‑3 hours until ready to serve.

  5. Cut the rolls in half and serve with the ends exposed.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Corn + chickentop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the tender dough that wraps the filling and carries the tamale's texture.
Chicken
Provides the savory, moist filling that gives the tamale its main flavour.
Spanish pepper
Adds pepper flavour and aroma to the chicken filling.
Chicken bones
Release flavour and body into the cooking water, seasoning the tamales as they steam.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the tamales above the water. If the tamales sit in the boiling water they become waterlogged and the cornmeal dough turns soggy and loose. Resting them on the bones keeps them steaming, so the dough cooks set and holds its shape.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, chicken, pepper, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, chicken, pepper, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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