Tamal de camarón

Name: Tamal de camarón
Yield: Makes 6
Cuisine: The Pacific Lowlands, Chocó, Esmeraldas and Guayaquil
Ingredients: 360ml (1.5 cups) rice; 450g (1 lb) shrimp; a little water, to scald the shrimp; 2 coconuts, pressed for two milks; 2 medium onions; 3 stems of cebolla larga; 3 cloves of garlic; 2 medium tomatoes; 4 tbsp chirarán, chopped; 6 hojas blancas, or banana leaves

Tumaco

Tamal de camarón, rice cooked in shrimp water folded into a coconut guiso with the shrimp, wrapped in leaf and steamed: two dark green leaf parcels tied with string, one opened to show a rectangle of pale orange rice studded with whole pink shrimp and flecked with herbs.

Illustration

Researched: Researched from 67 sources in the brief

Rice cooked in shrimp water and folded into a coconut guiso with the shrimp, wrapped in hoja blanca and steamed until the leaf goes dark green. Gladys Prado Churta of Tumaco gives it for six with every quantity. The Pacific tamal may be of maize or of green plantain, and the piangua tamal that Luz Mercedes Bazán brings to Cali won a national prize in the Ministry's competition. The leaf is the hoja blanca, a musaceous leaf; banana leaf is the stand-in. No time is given for the steaming, because the leaf gives the time.

As tradition built it

Makes 6. The steaming is by the leaf's colour.

Ingredients

360ml (1.5 cups) rice
450g (1 lb) shrimp
a little water, to scald the shrimp
2 coconuts, pressed for two milks
2 medium onions
3 stems of cebolla larga
3 cloves of garlic
2 medium tomatoes
4 tbsp chirarán, chopped
6 hojas blancas, or banana leaves

Method

Grate the coconuts and press them for two milks.
Make the guiso with the onions, cebolla larga, garlic and tomatoes in the first coconut milk.
Clean the shrimp, scald them in a little water until they are pink, lift them out, and keep the water.
Mix the shrimp into the guiso.
Cook the rice in the shrimp water.
Mix the rice and the guiso with the chirarán.
Pass the hojas blancas over the fire, wash and dry them on both sides, and trim them. Build the tamales in the leaves and tie them.
Steam them in a pot with water until the leaf has gone dark green.

What a modern chef changes

The leaf's cue, timed

Rung 3

Method

Cook the rice to two thirds in the shrimp water and let the steam finish it in the leaf; fully cooked rice goes to paste in the parcel.
Steam 35 minutes at a full boil in a stacked steamer, which is when a banana leaf goes dark green, and 10 minutes more if the parcels are cold from the fridge.
Keep back a third of the shrimp whole and lay them on top of the filling before closing, so each tamal opens on a shrimp.
Serve with a spoon of the thick coconut milk warmed, and lime.

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