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Hot Tamales

Hot tamales made with tender beef, cornmeal dough, and corn husks, boiled or steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hot Tamales

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the beef and onion until well done, then remove and chop finely or grind.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with melted butter.

Make the dough

  1. In a pan, sift the cornmeal, add melted lard, and pour in the boiling water, stirring quickly until the dough is stiff enough to handle.

  2. Wash the corn husks in hot water and select the broadest parts.

Shape and cook

  1. Place a tablespoon of dough on one husk, pat it out to ½ inch thick, 2 inches wide, and 4 inches long.

  2. Add a generous tablespoon of the meat mixture on top of the dough.

  3. Roll the husk like a cigarette, folding the ends toward the middle, and tie securely with a strip of husk.

  4. Place the tamales in boiling water and cook for about an hour, or steam in a colander if preferred.

  5. Serve hot, removing the husks as you eat.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Beef + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,028 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the dough that wraps the filling and sets into a firm, tender body when cooked.
Lard
Adds fat to the dough, keeping it tender and moist after cooking.
Tender beef
Provides the savoury filling, cooked until well done so it chops finely.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the chopped meat filling.

The step that matters

Stiffening the dough with boiling water. Cornmeal needs hot liquid to hydrate its starch so the dough becomes stiff enough to hold its shape and wrap the filling without cracking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, corn. 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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