Antojitos

, , , ,

Making out-of-this-world heirloom-corn tamales is totally within your power!

, , , ,

By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This article was first published, in slightly different form, on Dec. 8, 2021.]

If you’ve always wanted to try making tamales for Christmas, but something inevitably got in the way (yep, it sounds pretty intimidating!), this is a great year to dive in with your maiden effort. It’s super fun, the rewards are great, and it’s easier than you might think.

Best of all, heirloom corn masa harina is now widely available. It makes tamales that are about a thousand times better than those made with Maseca or other commercial masa harina. I love the product from Masienda, which is now available at many fine supermarkets (including Whole Foods Markets), as well as through Amazon. Choose any color you like — yellow, white, blue, red, or more than one. King Arthur also sells an organic masa harina that’s much better than Maseca.

READ: “The Masa Life, Part I: How heirloom corn masa harina can transform everyday cooking”

How do blue corn tamales filled with duck in dark mole sound? Or vegan tamales filled with roasted sweet potato and vegetable picadillo — served with salsa macha? Yes, I thought so!

Why tamales, why now?

Until a few years ago, I thought that making tamales might not be worth the trouble. Most tamales I’d ever eaten — even those that came wrapped in great reputations — had just been OK at best. Usually the masa was not terribly flavorful, often on the heavy side, with not enough (or not delicious enough) filling.

Then I tasted Olivia Lopez’s tamales, made with masa fashioned from heirloom corn. (As you know if you’ve been reading Cooks Without Borders’ Mexican cooking features for any length of time, we are super fortunate to have Olivia as our resident Mexican cooking expert.) Of course much of her tamales’ lusciousness is thanks to her skill and palate — as chef and co-owner of Molino Olōyō in Dallas, the smashing tamales Olivia has been selling since last year through her Instagram feed quickly developed a cult following. (She doesn’t yet have a brick-and-mortar location.)

But another big part of the reason for Olivia’s tamales’ great flavor is the quality of the heirloom corn from Mexico that she nixtamalizes to make her masa.

For a story I published in The Dallas Morning News a few years ago, Olivia developed a recipe for a Sweet Pineapple Tamal using then-newly available heirloom masa harina from Masienda, and the tamales were spectacular.

And so (Christmas lightbulb illuminating — ding ding ding!) for the holiday season, Olivia developed and shared with us two savory tamal recipes using heirloom masa harina.

They’re out of this world — and believe it or not, not difficult to make.

First is the vegan tamal — one that gets its lushness from coconut oil, rather than the usual lard. It’s filled with roasted sweet potato and a vegetable picadillo. “That picadillo is inspired by the one my Grandma Margarita used to make,” says Olivia. The confetti-like sauté of onions, carrots, tomato, chiles, golden raisins and more is also versatile beyond tamales; if you have any left over, you can use it to fill tetelas, sopes or quesadillas. (I filled tetelas with a little extra picadillo and roasted sweet potato — fantastic.)

Sweet Potato and Vegetable Picadillo Tamales, prepared using Masienda heirloom masa harina, from Olivia Lopez’s recipe

In Mexico, Olivia tells us, tamales are usually eaten on their own, generally not with any salsa. “Usually you just have them with atole,” she says. “Masa on masa!” (Atole is a sweet, hot drink made with masa.) But she loves the late-autumn/early winter flavors of the vegan tamal with salsa macha — and we happen to have a great recipe for that, as well (Olivia’s!).

Our second tamal — blue corn filled with pato en mole oscuro (duck in dark mole) — has a saucy flourish as well: a quickly put-together chimichurri-like salsa made from dried tart cherries, chives (or scallion tops), parsley and lime. “It balances the rich, earthy mole,” says Olivia. Beautifully, I would add.

Tamales de Pato en Mole Oscuro (duck in dark mole), with Tart Cherry-Chive Salsa — prepared from recipes by Molino Oloyo chef and co-owner Olivia Lopez

The tamal’s filling is achieved by roasting duck legs (easy), then saucing the shredded duck in a dark mole that’s also easier to put together than I imagined. (Empowering!) You can use the duck fat that renders when you slow-roast those legs to enrich the masa, or use olive oil — again, no lard. Our instructions have you wrap the tamales in banana leaves before steaming, but corn husks work just as well. The vegan tamales call for corn husks, but they’re also interchangeable — as is the color of heirloom masa harina you use, yellow, blue, rose or white.

Don’t freak out when you see the long recipes — the reason for their wordiness is we’re holding your hand tight, to make sure you’re comfortable with what may be a new process, and to ensure you get great results. To that end, we put together a tip sheet.

And finally, here is the recipe for Olivia’s Sweet Pineapple Tamales. We love pineapple’s sunny and bright flavor during winter’s chill — makes us (almost!) feel we’re in Colima, Mexico, Olivia’s home town. If only!

Want to keep the Sweet Pineapple Tamal vegan? Easy to do — the crema garnish is optional. And all three are gluten-free.

Happy Tamalidays!

Browse our Cooks Without Borders CookShop

Browse our Cooks Without Borders Cookbook Shop

Want a free or paid subscription to Cooks Without Borders’ Webby Award-winning newsletter, with recipes delivered to your inbox? Sign up below!

Want to make Moti Mahal-style butter chicken? Our take on its recipe has the restaurant owner’s stamp of approval

By Leslie Brenner

News outlets all around the world, including the Times of India, Indian Express, BBC, The Guardian, South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, CBS News, Le Figaro and others, have reported on a culinary dispute that landed in the High Court in Delhi, India in January.

At the center of it: bragging rights to murgh makhani, also known as butter chicken. The dish, as you know if you’ve ever swooned over a plate of it, consists of pieces of tandoori chicken bathed in a rich, velvety gravy built from onions, ginger, garlic, spices and tomatoes, and finished with butter and cream.

On one side of the butter chicken conflict is Monish Gujral, owner of Moti Mahal — which began as a dhaba (roadside restaurant) in Peshawar in pre-Partition India (now Pakistan) in 1920 and reopened in Delhi post-Partition in 1947. His grandfather, Kundan Laj Gujral — Moti Mahal’s first chef and eventual owner — has long been credited with having created butter chicken. His Delhi Moti Mahal was an instant hit, and the Gujral family developed it over the ensuing decades into an empire of more than 250 restaurants around the world — fueled largely on butter chicken’s enduring popularity.

On the other side is Raghave Jaggi, whose grandfather Kundan Laj Jaggi (yes, same first name as Gujral’s grandfather) was also a chef who fled Peshawar during Partition and who also settled in Delhi. Both parties agree, according to the New York Times, that the two chefs — Kundan Laj Jaggi and Kundan Laj Gujral — were partners in that first Delhi Moti Mahal.

Which of the two created butter chicken (and dal makhani, butter lentils)? That’s the disagreement: Both Gujral and Jaggi say the two dishes were their own grandfather’s inventions.

In 2019, Raghave Jaggi opened his own restaurant, calling it Daryaganj. Its tagline: “By the inventors of butter chicken & dal makhani.”

Two tales of one chicken

Here’s the story as the Gujral family presents it. Fabulous as tandoori chicken is just out of the tandoor, it tends to dry out overnight, and isn’t fit for serving the day after it’s made. That kind of food waste doesn’t fly in restaurants, and the elder Gujral came up with a delicious solution: He created a rich, buttery, beautifully spiced gravy as a way to revive those dried-out tandoori chickens.

Daryaganj’s menu tells a different story:

“One fine night in 1947, Kundan Lal Jaggi was about to shut shop when a group of hungry guests arrived at his restaurant. The kitchen was nearly empty at that late hour, barring a few portions of their famous tandoori chicken. He was struck with the idea to make a “butter” gravy with tomatoes, fresh butter and some spices. He then added pieces of cooked tandoori chicken to it, so it can suffice for all. The guests loved it and he decided to put this dish permanently on his menu and christened it ‘Butter Chicken.’”

And so both families are headed to the High Court, where Gujral is suing Jaggi for copyright infringement and unfair competition. The suit, which is expected to be heard in May, will presumably decide which of their brand stories is legit – with high-stakes ramifications for each restaurant brand’s marketing.

Meanwhile, it just us, or does that tale sound a lot like Caesar Salad’s origin story? Here’s Wikipedia’s version:

“The salad's creation is generally attributed to the restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States. Cardini lived in San Diego but ran one of his restaurants in Tijuana to attract American customers seeking to circumvent the restrictions of Prohibition. His daughter, Rosa, recounted that her father invented the salad at the Tijuana restaurant when a Fourth of July rush in 1924 depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of table-side tossing by the chef.”

World Butter Chicken starts with tandoori chicken thighs.

A personal favorite

While the two families battle it out in court, we’ll be enjoying the Moti Mahal version of the dish stateside — and invite you to, as well.

I developed a butter chicken obsession a few years back, and became intent on developing a recipe as close as possible to the one served at Moti Mahal. We’re all about presenting the quintessential version of essential recipes at Cooks Without Borders, and the version served at the place that made a dish world-famous felt like the appropriate benchmark. To that end, in the spring of 2020, I started with the murgh makhani recipe from Monish Gujral’s 2009 book, On the Butter Chicken Trail. At the same time, I struck up a correspondence with Gujral — wanting to run by him any refinements to his recipe, to make sure the result would be as close to what he served in his restaurants as possible.

Gujral delighted me by looking over and approving of my tweaks to his original recipe, all designed to help American cooks closely approximate the dish in their American kitchens. For instance, instead of asking cooks to start with a 600-700-gram (1 1/3 to 1 1/2-pound) whole, skinless chicken, marinating it, skewering it, then roasting it on a spit, when I’ve never seen such a small bird in a commercial setting stateside and few people here are set up for spit-roasting, my recipe uses chicken thighs, giving them a yogurt-based tandoori marinade first, then roasting them on a rack so the oven heat circulates around them. For the sauce, rather than using 14 whole tomatoes and then straining them out (along with the onions), I used a can of diced tomatoes, and puréed the sauce to silky smooth — less work, less waste, just as much flavor (or maybe more). The dish quickly became a Cooks Without Borders favorite.

A few months later, Gujral contacted me, as he was planning to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the original Moti Mahal, the Peshawar dhaba.

Together, Gujral and I cooked up the idea of creating a food holiday to commemorate the anniversary — World Butter Chicken Day. I wrote about it for The Dallas Morning News. In honor of the occasion, I streamlined and refined the adapted recipe even further, and called it World Butter Chicken. I believe it’s as excellent as its more elaborate and time-consuming forebear, and once again, Gujral gave it his blessing.

RECIPE: World Butter Chicken

If we can ever get our hands on Daryaganj’s butter chicken recipe, we’re eager to produce a Butter Chicken Smackdown — preparing both recipes and tasting them side by side. (How fun would that be?!) Alas, a tag on Daryaganj’s menu that says “Secret Recipes of 1947” would seem to imply that family is not about to give away theirs.

We’ll certainly be keeping our eyes on the Delhi High Court’s decision. No matter what happens, I’ll forever be grateful to the Gujral family for sharing their own spectacular recipe for butter chicken success with the world.

, , , ,

Want to make awesome tamales? Quick, order some heirloom corn masa harina, then follow our lead!

, , , ,

By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This article was first published, in slightly different form, on Dec. 8, 2021.]

If you’ve always wanted to try making tamales for Christmas, but something inevitably got in the way (yep, it sounds pretty intimidating!), this is a great year to dive in with your maiden effort. It’s super fun, the rewards are great, and it’s easier than you might think. Christmas Eve falls conveniently on Sunday this year, so that can be a lovely day of cooking. More importantly, we home cooks now have heirloom corn masa harina at our disposal — which makes tamales that are about a thousand times better than those made with Maseca, or other commercial masa harina.

If you’re going to do this, you’ll need to quickly order some masa harina — we love the product from Masienda, which also now sells through Amazon and some Whole Foods Markets. Choose any color you like — yellow, white, blue, red, or more than one. King Arthur also sells an organic masa harina that’s much better than Maseca.

Got them ordered? (Or maybe you have some on hand because you’ve been living the masa life?) OK, good. Now let’s talk tamales.

How do blue corn tamales filled with duck in dark mole sound? Or vegan tamales filled with roasted sweet potato and vegetable picadillo — served with salsa macha? Yes, I thought so!

Why tamales, why now?

Until a few years ago, I thought that making tamales might not be worth the trouble. Most tamales I’d ever eaten — even those that came wrapped in great reputations — had just been OK at best. Usually the masa was not terribly flavorful, often on the heavy side, with not enough (or not delicious enough) filling.

Then I tasted Olivia Lopez’s tamales, made with masa fashioned from heirloom corn. (As you know if you’ve been reading Cooks Without Borders’ Mexican cooking features for any length of time, we are super fortunate to have Olivia as our resident Mexican cooking expert.) Of course much of her tamales’ lusciousness is thanks to her skill and palate — as chef and co-owner of Molino Olōyō in Dallas, the smashing tamales Olivia has been selling since last year through her Instagram feed quickly developed a cult following. (She doesn’t yet have a brick-and-mortar location.)

But another big part of the reason for Olivia’s tamales’ great flavor is the quality of the heirloom corn from Mexico that she nixtamalizes to make her masa.

For a story I published in The Dallas Morning News a few years ago, Olivia developed a recipe for a Sweet Pineapple Tamal using then-newly available heirloom masa harina from Masienda, and the tamales were spectacular.

And so (Christmas lightbulb illuminating — ding ding ding!) for the holiday season, Olivia developed and shared with us two savory tamal recipes using heirloom masa harina.

They’re out of this world — and believe it or not, not difficult to make.

First is the vegan tamal — one that gets its lushness from coconut oil, rather than the usual lard. It’s filled with roasted sweet potato and a vegetable picadillo. “That picadillo is inspired by the one my Grandma Margarita used to make,” says Olivia. The confetti-like sauté of onions, carrots, tomato, chiles, golden raisins and more is also versatile beyond tamales; if you have any left over, you can use it to fill tetelas, sopes or quesadillas. (I filled tetelas with a little extra picadillo and roasted sweet potato — fantastic.)

Sweet Potato and Vegetable Picadillo Tamales, prepared using Masienda heirloom masa harina, from Olivia Lopez’s recipe

In Mexico, Olivia tells us, tamales are usually eaten on their own, generally not with any salsa. “Usually you just have them with atole,” she says. “Masa on masa!” (Atole is a sweet, hot drink made with masa.) But she loves the late-autumn/early winter flavors of the vegan tamal with salsa macha — and we happen to have a great recipe for that, as well (Olivia’s!).

Our second tamal — blue corn filled with pato en mole oscuro (duck in dark mole) — has a saucy flourish as well: a quickly put-together chimichurri-like salsa made from dried tart cherries, chives (or scallion tops), parsley and lime. “It balances the rich, earthy mole,” says Olivia. Beautifully, I would add.

Tamales de Pato en Mole Oscuro (duck in dark mole), with Tart Cherry-Chive Salsa — prepared from recipes by Molino Oloyo chef and co-owner Olivia Lopez

The tamal’s filling is achieved by roasting duck legs (easy), then saucing the shredded duck in a dark mole that’s also easier to put together than I imagined. (Empowering!) You can use the duck fat that renders when you slow-roast those legs to enrich the masa, or use olive oil — again, no lard. Our instructions have you wrap the tamales in banana leaves before steaming, but corn husks work just as well. The vegan tamales call for corn husks, but they’re also interchangeable — as is the color of heirloom masa harina you use, yellow, blue, rose or white.

Don’t freak out when you see the long recipes — the reason for their wordiness is we’re holding your hand tight, to make sure you’re comfortable with what may be a new process, and to ensure you get great results. To that end, we put together a tip sheet.

And finally, here is the recipe for Olivia’s Sweet Pineapple Tamales. We love pineapple’s sunny and bright flavor during winter’s chill — makes us (almost!) feel we’re in Colima, Mexico, Olivia’s home town. If only!

Want to keep the Sweet Pineapple Tamal vegan? Easy to do — the crema garnish is optional. And all three are gluten-free.

Happy Tamalidays!

, , ,

Crunchy, light and fun, heirloom-corn tostadas will set you free this summer

, , ,

An heirloom-corn tostada topped with beans, salad, shredded chicken and pico de gallo

By Leslie Brenner

Why doesn’t everyone eat tostadas, all the time? It’s a question that nags me noon and night — especially in summertime, when the idea of something light, healthy and fresh, but also delicious and satisfying (and gluten-free!), is top of mind. Plus they’re infinitely adaptable.

What is a tostada? It’s a crisp corn tortilla topped with something appealing. It could be a cold, inviting ceviche. It might be a fresh salad with a layer of warm beans. Perhaps it’s a thatch of cool shredded lettuce topped with warm tinga de pollo. Or an irresistible spin on avocado toast. Whichever way, the tortilla underneath provides delightful crunchy contrast.

People in Mexico, where tostadas were invented, understand their terrific appeal.

And tostadas have been a thing in Southern California for ages. When I was growing up in Los Angeles, giant salady chicken tostadas layered with beans were found in just about every Mexican restaurant: the perfect lunch. My favorite version, as a young adult working in Hollywood, was conveniently located across the street from Paramount Studios, at a show-biz hangout called Lucy’s El Adobe. But you could find chicken tostadas everywhere.

More fashionable these days in the Golden State — and differently wonderful — are simpler, flatter seafood tostadas topped with things like ceviche or octopus salad. A stall in downtown L.A.’s Grand Central Market called La Tostaderia specializes in them, but they’re also found on mariscos (seafood) trucks and stands all over town.

“Places like that are all over Mexico,” says Olivia Lopez, owner of Molino Olōyō in Dallas, and Cooks Without Borders’ Mexican cuisine expert. Known as marisquerías, they are small spots selling mariscos, often arrayed on tostadas. They are popular in Colima, the coastal state where she’s from, and all along the Pacific coast. And they’re trending. “Marisquerías are expanding all over the country,” says Olivia. “It has become a trend in maybe the last 10 years.”

Bright, light, fresh and tangy, a tostada makes an irresistible lunch or snack. Dress it up a bit, and you can invite it to a special dinner. Or tostada party, which Olivia has done recently at a couple of pop-ups.

Yep — Olivia knows how to dress them up. On Molino Olōyō’s Instagram feed, you’ll find one topped with pickled cabbage, chicken in mole, homemade crema, pickled onions and salsa macha.

I fell head-over-heels in love with her Scallop Ceviche Tostada the minute I laid eyes on it, and even more when I tasted it. It’s a blue-corn tostada spread with avocado purée, topped with a bright and voluptuous scallop ceviche and drizzled with a tangy Scallion Condiment. Salsa macha is spooned around, adding depth, and crunchy toasted peanuts go on top.

It’s cheffy and gorgeous, to be sure, but surprisingly easy to achieve at home. Especially if you happen to keep a jar of Olivia’s outstanding Salsa Macha in the fridge, and you’ve made the tostada bases in advance. The scallop ceviche itself is a snap to make; it takes all of about 10 minutes.

Do try this at home

Before heirloom masa harina changed my life, I never made tostadas at home. But now that it’s remarkably easy to make outstanding corn tortillas that don’t involve GMO corn, I make them all the time. It’s a no-brainer — and no need to fry the tortillas to get the crunch. Just make a batch of tortillas, set them on a rack on a baking sheet and let them dry out and get crisp in a low oven. Alternatively, you can use leftover tortillas — simply dry them in the oven.

Then let your imagination go wild.

As a starting point, you might use avocado on top of the crisped tortilla. Olivia’s scallop ceviche creation uses avocado purée, but you could also smear some guacamole or smashed avocado on there, or dress it up like an avocado toast — pretty slices, a generous squeeze of lime, some fancy salt and a grind of black pepper or smattering of chile flakes. In full-on summer, juicy slices of heirloom tomato are a delightful addition. Cilantro leaves are always welcome.

I love the simple treat, because it really features the fabulous, deep flavor of the heirloom corn tortilla — and it’s also vegan and gluten-free.

You don’t need a recipe for it, but here’s a recipe anyway.

A Mexican home-cooking classic

If you’re a fan of Chicken Tinga (Tinga de Pollo) — an easy stew of poached chicken, tomato, onion, garlic and chipotle chile — you can do as Mexican home cooks do and make second-day Tostadas con Tinga de Pollo with the leftovers. Just spoon some reheated Chicken Tinga over a tostdada piled with shredded lettuce, garnish with crumbled queso fresco, if you like, and maybe a squiggle of crema (Mexican sour cream). Bright-flavored raw salsa verde adds tangy dimension.

Or join me in reliving my youth and construct an addictive Chicken Salad Tostada.

Last summer, I got in the habit of keeping tostadas handy, along with the makings of pico de gallo (tomato, white onion, serrano, cilantro) and avocados, and on the weekend I’d make a pot of frijoles de olla. Using organic roast chicken picked up at the supermarket (don’t tell my kid!), I found myself making these a couple times a week. I also stared keeping cans of organic pinto beans around, in case I needed to have this and didn’t have time to make beans. (Yes, they’re that crave-able!)

This summer (which hasn’t even officially started yet) is shaping up to be a repeat.

When you make them, they look giant. The salad spills over the tortilla. You think, that’s so big — how can I possibly eat that? You can; it’s mostly lettuce. The contrast of its cool freshness with the rich, warm beans is marvelous. The avocado and chicken make it substantial. The pico de gallo makes it superbly juicy and bright.

In other words, buen provecho: I hope you enjoy my favorite lunch!

Want to receive our recipes in your in-box? Sign up for our free newsletter.

, , , ,

The masa life: Making out-of-this-world tamales is totally within your power!

, , , ,

By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is third in a series of Cooks Without Borders stories (with recipes) about how to live the masa life. Read The Masa Life Part 1 and The Masa Life Part 2.]

Got plans this weekend? If not, let’s make tamales! How do blue corn tamales filled with duck in dark mole sound? Or vegan tamales filled with roasted sweet potato and vegetable picadillo — served with salsa macha? Yes, I thought so!

Because heirloom corn is now available to home cooks in the form of easy-to-use and incredibly flavorful masa harina, making tamales at home has suddenly become an exciting and delicious project — just in time for tamales season.

Until recently I thought that making tamales might not be worth the trouble. Most tamales I’d ever eaten — even those that came wrapped in great reputations — had just been OK at best. Usually the masa was not terribly flavorful, often on the heavy side, with not enough (or not delicious enough) filling.

Then I tasted Olivia Lopez’s tamales, made with masa fashioned from heirloom corn. (As you know if you’ve been reading Cooks Without Borders’ Mexican cooking features for any length of time, we are super fortunate to have Olivia as our resident Mexican cooking expert.) Of course much of her tamales’ lusciousness is thanks to her skill and palate — as chef and co-owner of Molino Olōyō in Dallas, the smashing tamales Olivia sells through her Instagram feed have quickly developed a cult following. (She doesn’t yet have a brick-and-mortar location.)

But another big part of the reason for Olivia’s tamales’ great flavor is the quality of the heirloom corn from Mexico that she nixtamalizes to make her masa.

For a story I published in The Dallas Morning News last spring, Olivia developed a recipe for a Sweet Pineapple Tamal using the newly available heirloom masa harina from Masienda, and the tamales were spectacular.

And so (Christmas lightbulb illuminating — ding ding ding!) for this holiday season, Olivia has been generous to develop and share with us two savory tamal recipes using heirloom masa harina.

They’re out of this world — and believe it or not, not difficult to make.

First is the vegan tamal — one that gets its lushness from coconut oil, rather than the usual lard. It’s filled with roasted sweet potato and a vegetable picadillo. “That picadillo is inspired by the one my Grandma Margarita used to make,” says Olivia. The confetti-like sauté of onions, carrots, tomato, chiles, golden raisins and more is also versatile beyond tamales; if you have any left over, you can use it to fill tetelas, sopes or quesadillas. (I filled tetelas with a little extra picadillo and roasted sweet potato — fantastic.)

Sweet Potato and Vegetable Picadillo Tamales, prepared using Masienda heirloom masa harina, from Olivia Lopez’s recipe

In Mexico, Olivia tells us, tamales are usually eaten on their own, generally not with any salsa. “Usually you just have them with atole,” she says. “Masa on masa!” (Atole is a sweet, hot drink made with masa.) But she loves the late-autumn/early winter flavors of the vegan tamal with salsa macha — and we happen to have a great recipe for that, as well (Olivia’s!).

Our second tamal — blue corn filled with pato en mole oscuro (duck in dark mole) — has a saucy flourish as well: a quickly put-together chimichurri-like salsa made from dried tart cherries, chives (or scallion tops), parsley and lime. “It balances the rich, earthy mole,” says Olivia. Beautifully, I would add.

Tamales de Pato en Mole Oscuro (duck in dark mole), with Tart Cherry-Chive Salsa — prepared from recipes by Molino Oloyo chef and co-owner Olivia Lopez

The tamal’s filling is achieved by roasting duck legs (easy), then saucing the shredded duck in a dark mole that’s also easier to put together than I imagined. (Empowering!) You can use the duck fat that renders when you slow-roast those legs to enrich the masa, or use olive oil — again, no lard. Our instructions have you wrap the tamales in banana leaves before steaming, but corn husks work just as well. The vegan tamales call for corn husks, but they’re also interchangeable — as is the color of heirloom masa harina you use, yellow, blue, rose or white.

Don’t freak out when you see the long recipes — the reason for their wordiness is we’re holding your hand tight, to make sure you’re comfortable with what may be a new process, and to ensure you get great results. To that end, we put together a tip sheet.

And finally, here is the recipe for Olivia’s Sweet Pineapple Tamales. We love pineapple’s sunny and bright flavor during winter’s chill — makes us (almost!) feel we’re in Colima, Mexico, Olivia’s home town. If only!

Want to keep the Sweet Pineapple Tamal vegan? Easy to do — the crema garnish is optional. And all three are gluten-free.

Happy Tamalidays!

, , ,

How to make tetelas — those tasty, triangular masa packets that are about to become super trendy

, , ,
Tetelas filled with mezcal-sautéed mushrooms and quesillo (Oaxaca cheese) and served with crema, salsa roja and sliced avocado

Tetelas filled with mezcal-sautéed mushrooms and quesillo (Oaxaca cheese) and served with crema, salsa roja and sliced avocado

By Leslie Brenner

[Editor’s note: This is second in a series of Cooks Without Borders stories (with recipes) about how to live the masa life. Read The Masa Life Part 1.. This article was updated April 20, 2024.]

The first time I ever tasted a tetela, weirdly enough, was at my own kitchen counter. It was last spring, when Olivia Lopez, who hadn’t yet founded her popular Dallas business Molino Olōyō, shared a recipe for us to publish here at Cooks Without Borders.

It was a wonderful dish, and beautiful to boot. The tetelas, made from Masienda masa harina, were filled with refried beans and spooned over with a gorgeous sauté of spring vegetables.

Olivia Lopez’s Tetelas with Spring Vegetables and Requeson

Olivia Lopez’s Tetelas with Spring Vegetables and Requeson

I wanted to run the recipe right away, but there was so much explaining to do first. Because they’re filled with Olivia’s vegan, refried bayo beans, we’d first need to talk about bayo beans, and how to think about Mexican beans in a whole new way. We’d need to explain the whys and wherefores of making masa at home that’s far better than what you make using Maseca. And we’d need to show how to make some basic things you should probably make with masa before you attempt tetelas.

Read “Bring on the bayos: showing some love for Mexico’s creamy, dreamy other bean — and its kissin’ cousin mayocoba”

Read “The masa life: How heirloom masa harina and a new (old!) world of beans can transform everyday eating”

Six months later, that’s out of the way. So, let’s talk tetelas!

What exactly is a tetela, anyway?

A traditional snack from Oaxaca, a tetela is triangular masa casing filled with one or two ingredients (often refried beans and/or the stringy, meltable Oaxacan cheese known as quesillo). It can be eaten plain, slit open from the top and dressed with salsa and crema, or dressed up even more than that, as with Olivia’s spring veg creation.

Making tetelas has much in common with making quesadillas — the traditional corn-tortilla kind of quesadilla you find in Oaxaca, not the store-bought flour-tortilla kind most common stateside. To make a tetela, you press masa into a tortilla disc, but before it’s cooked, you add the filling or fillings, fold the tortilla around them into sealed triangular packet, and then cook the packet on both sides on a comal or skillet. “The ingenious wrapping of the masa makes this a perfect vessel to keep ingredients hot and it has the advantage of being a great to-go snack,”wrote Enrique Olvera and company in their cookbook Tu Casa Mi Casa. Think of it as a three-sided, sealed quesadilla.

Why are tetelas about to become trendy?

Heirloom-corn-focused molino-cafés and similar businesses are suddenly popping up all over the U.S., and tetelas are one of the masa shapes the chefs and entrepreneurs behind them often feature. Check out the pretty tetelas— bi-colored and imprinted with epazote leaves — in the lead photo for a Bon Appétit story recently published by yours truly on the subject.

Tetelas are a simple pleasure I turn to again and again when I find myself in possession of a juicy pot of beans, or a chewy hank of quesillo. And because I’m usually harboring at least one or two salsas in the fridge, it’s an easy way to make something delicious, special and nearly always meat-free come together without too much effort. It may look complicated, but do it once or twice, and it’s a breeze. You only need two or three tetelas per person, so it’s not like making a million dumplings. If you make and cook the tetelas ahead of time, you can keep them in the fridge and reheat them later on the comal.

Folding a tetela

Folding a tetela

You can also think of the meal-planning kind of backward: If you have a jar of Salsa Macha, say, whether purchased or home-made, a tetela would be the ideal vehicle for it. It’s like of like building an outfit around a scarf or belt, and it works. You can even cheat and keep cans of refried beans on hand (I like the organic pinto refried beans from Whole Foods). If you also keep quesillo (or any other kind of meltable cheese) in your fridge, and of course masa harina in the pantry, you are in business.

How do I get started?

So glad you asked!

• Get yourself a bag of superior masa harina. (We test all our masa-focused recipes using Masienda heirloom corn masa harina, which is available a many Whole Foods Markets, through its own website, and at Amazon. King Arthur sells organic masa harina, but its ground finer than Masienda’s, and it may not have the structure for tetelas (it’s nice for soft tortillas).

• If you want to include beans, put yourself in a refried-bean situation — any way you like. You can simmer up a pot of mayocobas or bayos and make a quick vegan version. You could buy a side-order from your favorite Mexican restaurant — you don’t need a whole lot to fill each tetela, just about a tablespoon. Or even buy a can.

• Buy some quesillo, if you want to include cheese. (Both of our recipes do, though you could certainly leave it out. For vegan versions, you can follow our two recipes and just use a little more refried beans or mushroom filling.)

• You will need a tortilla press. If you’re just starting out, you can get an inexpensive aluminum or cast-iron press. Many chefs love the Doña Rosa Tortilla Press sold through Masienda; it’s the one we use in our test kitchen.

• Make or procure some nice salsa or salsas. I recommend keeping Olivia’s Salsa Macha in the fridge. Or dice up some Pico de Gallo à la minute (it’s best eaten fresh). You might make in advance a Roasted Salsa Verde or Salsa Roja, or have a jar of store-bought on hand.

By now you’re probably clamoring for the recipe for Olivia’s gorgeous tetela dish. Alas, I’m going to ask you to wait. Ironically, now that I’ve laid down all that groundwork, spring vegetables are six months behind us. Of course that means they’re also six months ahead of us, so you can look forward to Olivia’s recipe once we have spring in our sights.

In the meantime, I’ve fallen in love with the basic tetelas, as they’re often enjoyed in Mexico: as simple snacks, served with salsa and maybe crema. Our recipes follow. Enjoy the folding and eating!

Blue corn tetelas filled with quesillo and refried beans and topped with crema, roasted salsa verde and salsa macha