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Tamale De Casuela

A cornmeal tamale filled with pork, olives, and spices, baked in a layered casserole.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Tamale De Casuela

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the pork

  1. Remove all fat and bones from the pork, then cut it into 2-inch pieces and boil until tender.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of lard or butter to a hot frying pan.

  3. Season the meat with salt and garlic.

  4. Transfer the meat to the frying pan, leaving the broth for later.

  5. Fry the meat until browned, stirring to prevent sticking.

  6. Add a cup of broth and 2 tablespoons of chili powder, stirring well.

  7. Dredge the mixture with flour and stir.

  8. Let it simmer on low heat until it thickens, adding more broth if it becomes too dry.

Make the porridge

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the boiling water.

  3. Gradually stir in 2 cups of corn meal, cooking until thick.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, add more broth.

  5. Stir in the beaten eggs and 2 tablespoons of lard.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the bottom of a baking dish with a layer of porridge.

  2. Add a layer of meat and olives.

  3. Cover with more porridge, meat, and olives.

  4. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1 hour.

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. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

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

  3. Corn + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,502 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Olive + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,716 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow corn meal
Forms the thick porridge that sets around the filling and gives the tamale its body.
Eggs
Bind the cornmeal porridge and help it set firm when baked.
Pork
Provides the main filling, with browning adding savory flavor.
Olives
Add briny, salty flavor and moisture to the layered filling.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the meat brown and the porridge taste rich.
Chili powder
Adds warm, earthy spice and color to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornmeal porridge until thick. Corn meal must be stirred in gradually and cooked until thick so the starch swells and sets properly; lumps or thin porridge will not hold its shape and may bake up soggy.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, egg, olive, pork, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, egg, olive, pork, 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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