Mesoamerica · Volume 03, The Port, the Delta and Vanilla's Own Country
Tamales de chipilín
Chontalpa, Tabasco, Mexico
Illustration
- Researched
- Researched from 65 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Tamales de chipilín
Steamed at least 2 hours.
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
The tamales
- masa colada
- chipilín leaves
- broth
- pork lard
- banana leaves
To serve
- to serve tomato salsa
- to serve queso crema tropical
Method
- Mix the masa colada with the chipilín leaves, the broth and the lard.
- Pass the banana leaves over the fire to soften them.
- Wrap the masa in the leaves, in tamales about 10cm long.
- Stand them in a pot with water in the bottom and steam them for at least 2 hours.
- Serve with tomato salsa, cooked tomatoes blended with chile amashito, serrano or habanero, and queso crema tropical over the top.
Notes
No named, precisely quantified traditional recipe with exact timings from a credible Tabasco-specific source could be found; chipilín itself is used the same way across Chiapas and Oaxaca and is not a Tabasco exclusive.
The method is the Tabasco one Larousse, El Universal and Quintana Roo Hoy describe; none gives quantities. Quintana Roo Hoy, quoting Yolanda Zurita, also mixes pork, pork head, sweet chile, parsley, white chile, tomato, onion and chives into the masa.
What a modern chef changes
Home masa, methi standing in for chipilín
Method
- Nixtamalize the maize at home, the same controlled process used above, for a masa with real depth of its own before the chipilín is ever added.
- Chipilín is not obtainable fresh, dried or frozen in Britain: use fresh fenugreek leaf, methi, as the closer of the two realistic UK substitutes for chipilín's genuinely bitter, slightly hay-like character, over the leafier but less bitter alternative of dandelion or amaranth greens, a substitution rather than an equivalence.
- Dehydrate a small portion of the substitute leaf and grind it to a fine dust in the spice grinder, folded through the masa alongside the fresh leaf, for a more concentrated bitter note standing in for what a real chipilín tamal would carry on its own.