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Chicken Tamales

Corn masa wrapped in husks, filled with seasoned chicken or beef, peppers, onions, and optional pickles, olives, raisins, and almonds, then steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chicken Tamales

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the masa

  1. Boil corn and lime in enough water to cover until the skins loosen.

  2. Wash off the lime.

  3. Grind the corn very fine.

  4. Mix in lard and salt.

  5. Add a little chicken broth if the dough is hard.

Prepare the husks

  1. Soak corn husks in warm water.

  2. Wash in cold water to harden them.

Make the filling

  1. Boil chicken or beef.

  2. If using beef, add veal and suet, frying with onions and butter until cooked.

  3. Boil red peppers until soft.

  4. Remove seeds and skins.

  5. Fry onions and garlic in lard or butter.

  6. Add flour to thicken.

  7. Add tomatoes, lemon juice, red pepper pulp, ground chilis, and brandy to the mixture.

  8. Combine this with the minced chicken or beef.

  9. Boil briefly.

  10. Salt to taste.

Assemble and steam

  1. Spread the corn mixture on each husk.

  2. Spread a wet corn husk with the masa.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of ground chilis.

  4. Add slices of boiled eggs, pickles, olives, raisins, and almonds if desired.

  5. Place another corn husk on top.

  6. Steam the tamales in a kettle for 1 to 2 hours.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Lime + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Corn + limetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together773 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lime + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,411 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Chicken + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn
Forms the masa dough that wraps and holds the filling together.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the masa tender and moist.
Chicken or beef
Provides the main savory filling of the tamales.
Red peppers
Add body, sweetness and colour to the filling sauce.
Onions
Build savory depth as they fry in fat for the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling sauce so it holds together.

The step that matters

Spreading the masa on the husks. Masa spread too thick may not cook through during steaming, while spread too thin may tear or leak filling when folded.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limethe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, chicken, pepper, onion, garlic, butter, flour. 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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