Tamal de olla

As tradition built it

Tamal de olla

Serves 6. About 2 hours.

Ingredients

• 1 lb chicken or pork
• 1 onion, sautéed
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 pepper
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 4 cups broth
• 10 olives
• 1 tbsp capers
• ¼ cup prunes and raisins, some households
• 2 cups cornmeal

Method

1. Stew chicken or pork with sautéed onion, garlic and pepper, tomato paste, broth, olives and capers, some households adding chopped prunes and raisins, until the meat is tender and the sauce well reduced.
2. Separately, stir cornmeal gradually into hot liquid with a whisk, working continuously until thickened to a smooth, spreadable masa.
3. In a serving dish, layer masa, then filling, then more masa, finishing with a spoonful of the stewing sauce on top.

Notes

No precise gram quantities were found; the process is well documented, the exact ratios are not.

In Coclé this is described as an autochthonous dish, traditionally cooked in clay containers.

What a modern chef changes

Meat and masa as two separately engineered components

Rung 01

Method

1. Cook the meat filling under sous vide until fully tender, then reduce its braising liquid separately on the stove to the same depth of flavour a long stew would give, keeping the meat's texture distinct rather than cooked to uniform softness.
2. Pass the finished masa through a chinois while still warm and workable, removing any lumps a whisked cornmeal batter can leave behind, for a genuinely smooth layer rather than a rustic one.
3. Rebuild the dish in individual dishes rather than one large one, giving each portion its own crisped top surface where masa meets the air, a texture the traditional single large dish only achieves at its edges.