Tamal en cazuela

As tradition built it

Tamal en cazuela

About 1 hour 30 minutes, then left to set.

Ingredients

The pork

• 450g pork, in small pieces
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

The sofrito

• 60ml oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 green pepper, finely chopped
• 120ml tomato sauce
• 60ml vino seco

The corn

• 480ml fresh ground corn
• 720ml water
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp, optional parsley, minced

Method

1. Season the pork with the lime juice and garlic and leave it 20 minutes.
2. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium high heat and cook the onion and pepper about a minute.
3. Add the pork and fry it over a medium high heat. Do not let the garlic burn; it turns bitter.
4. Add the tomato sauce and wine and cook 5 minutes over a medium heat. Take it off the heat.
5. Mix the corn with the water to a cream and put it in the cazuela with the meat, salt and pepper.
6. Simmer over a low heat 30 minutes to an hour, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon so it does not stick.
7. Leave it at room temperature to set. It is done when a spoon pushed into the middle stands up.

Notes

The recipe is Dailis's, of RecetaCubana. TodoCuba's fries the pork first and builds the sofrito in its fat, rinses and strains the corn before the water goes in, cooks it about an hour stirring now and then, and allows sour orange in place of lime.

What a modern chef changes

Blended corn, confit pork, dehydrated pork dust

Method

1. Blend the fresh corn to a purée in the high-power blender, then pass it through the chinois for a genuinely silkier cazuela with none of the fibrous corn skin a blender alone leaves behind.
2. Confit the marinated pork sous vide before it joins the sofrito, so it stays moist through the dish's full cooking time rather than drying out in the pot.
3. Dehydrate a small portion of the pork separately into a concentrated seasoning dust, scattered over the finished cazuela rather than stirred through.