Vegetarian Tamales

I made tamales after learning enough about making them from Alton Brown's show.

Filling: This can be made before and kept aside. You can be creative in choosing the ingredients for filling. Any good curry will work actually as long as it is somewhat dry. I made my filling using carrots, potatoes, kidney beans which give a sweet flavor.

Filling

* 1 or 2 potatoes diced
* 2-3 carrots diced
* 2 tbsp oil
* 1 large onion, finely chopped
* 2 garlic cloves, minced (optional)
* 1 tsp chili powder
* 1 tsp oregano
* 2 tablespoons kosher salt
* 2 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
* 2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 can kidney beans
* 1 cup veg stock
* 1 tablespoon chopped jalapeno pepper (1 pepper seeded and diced)
* 2-3 tbsp tomato paste (optional)
o Heat oil and saute onions and garlic;
o Add cumin powder and cayenne pepper and chili powder and oregano
o Add carrots and potatoes and cook well
o Add Kidney beans and salt and tomato paste
o Add veg stock and cook until veggies are well done

Masa

* 3 1/2 cups Masa Harina Flour
* 1 tablespoon kosher salt
* 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 cup veg shortening (or you can freeze olive oil and use it instead)
* 2 to 4 cups vegetable stock
* You can mix these with hand in a mixing bowl

Tamale:
* Soak corn husks in hot water for 1/2 hour or so
* Take one husk, scoop 1/2 icecream scoop of masa and flatten masa with your palm
* place 2 tbsp of filling in the center of masa and roll up the husk
* Tie 3 tamales into a bundle using cotton twine
* place them on a steamer and steam for atleast 1 hour
* You can look at the tamale rolling instructions in the web or in alton brown's episode on Tamales.

It came out pretty good. I am plannning to use a curry based filling next time and also try out sweet versions of Tamale.

Enjoy!