This piece was posted years ago, but we republish it every year because it’s a great recipe with video instructions.
It’s the season for tamales.
First step: Get your masa from La Palma Mexicatessen. Here is a video on how they make their masa.
Second: Follow the recipe from Simona Padilla, who owned a meat market at 24th and York streets for 15 years.
There, she started cooking Mexican dishes to sell. Although she says she’s mostly a home cook, she’s gone on to cook for the likes of the Mexican consul, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, and fundraising events for the Society of Professional Journalists, among other organizations.
In this video, Simona Padilla showed Hélène Goupil how to make tamales, a dish traditionally served for Christmas and other special occasions. The recipe is below.
Simo’s tamales (makes approximately 24)
- 4 chicken thighs
- 1 pasilla chile
- 2 pounds of prepared masa (ask for masa preparada for tamales at La Palma)
- 2 garlic cloves
- salt and pepper
- 2 dry California chiles
- 1 dry guajillo chile
- 1 dry pasilla chile
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds
- 1 bag dry corn husks
Soak corn husks in water for at least one hour. Place in a bowl.
For chicken tamales
- Boil chicken thighs or breasts in water and salt. Keep broth for salsa.
- To make the salsa, take out seeds from dry California chiles, guajillo chile, and pasilla chile.
- Sautee in oil.
- Put in blender with garlic, 1/2 cup of water, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds.
- Pour salsa in leftover chicken broth.
- Add a bay leaf and cook salsa on stove for a few minutes.
For rajas tamales
- Remove seeds from fresh pasilla chiles and cut in three strips. Cut Monterrey cheese in strips.
To finish them off
- Take corn husks and spread prepared masa on husk, leaving the bottom third empty.
- Place filling of choice and fold.
- Place in a steam basket and steam for approximately 25 to 30 minutes.
While I loved your article, the video you used for La Palma is over 10 years old and I know Paco Castano is no longer a co-owner. The owner Aida Ibarra is/would be happy to participate in any story you may want to do.
thanks for the great article, keep up the good work
I love that you use chicken thighs and breasts ,chille pasilla and Gaujillo ,garlic for taste it’s good but I don’t use bay leaf in my tamales but I like the way you them
Hardest thing for non-Latinos to understand about tamales is the proportion of meat to starch, ie, 4 chicken thighs to 24 tamales. They’re not the Mesoamerican answer to ravioli.
Yummy yummy soooooooooo gooooooooood ya’ll keep up the great work
Sweet! Thanks for these nice videos.
Those aren’t real tamales. The hard part is preparing la masa. Purchasing prepared masa ruined the final product