Ox-Tail Soup

It is cold.  It's still winter and soup is perfect for this weather.  My favorite home-made soup is Caldo de Res.  This is my version of Ox-Tail Soup inspired by my mom and the  recipe in the book (Chapter 7) by Laura Esquivel, "Like Water for Chocolate"  First take: 

·         One Large Onion (diced)

·         Two cloves of garlic (chopped)

·         4 Ox tails

Sauté the onion and garlic oil until they are transparent.

Brown the oxtails with onion and garlic.

  Next Chop remaining vegetables:

·         6 carrots

·         1 small cabbage

·         5 potatoes

·         2 zucchini

·         1-2 green bell peppers

·         corn on the cob (optional)

3.)  Add veggies/oxtails/garlic and onions to large stockpot with one gallon of water.  Add salt to taste and one teaspoon of comino.

4.)  Bring soup to boil-10-15 minutes and then lower medium heat, simmer for an hour.  Serve with Mexican rice, lemons, and corn tortillas. 

A great quote from the book's narrator and some rather sound advice:  "It is advisable to add a little more water than you normally would, since you are making a soup.  A good soup that's worth something has to be soupy without getting watery."

Holiday Traditions:

This is a quote from my M.F.A. thesis paper,
THE BORDERLINE BETWEEN THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL,
"Identifying myself as Xicana is one thing, but keeping culture alive is another. U.S. culture encourages assimilation and downplaying of our native culture. For me negotiating my identity as an American and honoring my roots is a balance which requires consideration and practice. There are many issues that are relevant to this balancing act, including but not limited to religion, celebrations, household maintenance, language, and motherhood."

Holiday traditions to continue next year:

• Tamales!!
• Polveron cookies.
• Putting the baby Jesus down on Christmas Eve.
• Rosca and putting the three Kings on the Nativity scene on January 6
• Attending the Posadas and children's Mass.
• Getting in the car and going to see the X-mas lights display in Harlingen.
• Buñuelos and firecrackers on New Years Eve. 

I would like to note that balancing career and family is tough.  The holidays are stressful times.  Some years we've hit every thing on this list and sometimes life happens.  Believe me, I am so over the superwoman thing.  As long as I'm enjoying my family,  not making them miserable, and explaining the reasons behind the traditions are what is important to me.  But having some goals to aspire to helps the continuity of tradition and is great motivation.  Children love traditions, especially ones that are tailored just for your family, it makes your house a home.

Day Two: Masa, Spreading, Cooking...

This should be on Day Two of Tamale making.


Mixing the Masa

To the 4lbs of wet masa I added:

• ¼ TBSP of chili powder

• 2 TBSP of paprika

• 2 ¼ TBSP of salt

• ¼ TBSP garlic powder

• ¾ c. reserved chili pod water

• 1 cup of Crisco  ( the second batch I used more the rule is 1 lb of manteca for every 5 lbs of masa)

• Reserved pork broth

Masa came out well. We spent all day spreading the ojallas. Me, Carmen, and even Yasmin and Maya. It's important to keep the spread ojallas covered with damp dishtowels at all times.

Cooking has been problematic. Although I lined the pan with ojallas, put a cup in the middle of the oval porcelain pot, and covered it with aluminum foil on medium heat for 45 minutes, I got SCORCHED EDGES and a few tamales that did not peel off easily of the ojallas, sometimes sticking. This did not stop my family from eating this whole batch within in a week. My plan was to make a small batch to work out the kinks in my recipe and then try again in a week.

Conclusions:

• Use a tamelera steamer (this was my tia Ofelia’s method)

• Use meat broth in steamer.

• Use chile ancho pulpo for masa instead of paprika and chili powder, this first batch, tamales looked a bit pale for my taste.

• Make a spicy batch of meat and keep separate from regular batch using sliced jalapeños in a can. I like La Costena, we put this on everything, tacos, enchiladas, carne...

• This is a two day process, this is a two day process, and this is a two day process…no need to kill yourself doing it.

All’s well that ends well. This first batch was a big eye opener for me. I feel a lot more confident in my skills. The next week I followed this recipe to a T and bought an iMUSA tamalera steamer   (I got mine on sale at H.E.B. for 19.99) and my tamales came out incredible. All you have to do is put the water or pork meat broth (2 cups) on the bottom, stack the tamales criss-cross, cover with foil and lid, put the steamer on high to a boil, when it comes to a boil, turn down to medium and cook for 45 minutes-one hour and 15 minutes.  No scorched tamales. The tamales peeled off the ojallas like a dream, so tender.

Making tamales 12/14/09

The next few entries are about my cooking tamales on my own this past December 2009.  I wrote in a journal and took notes while cooking.

It's tamale making time.  I'm behind, should have done my meat last night but am doing it now.  At least I did the ojallas last night soaking in the sink, covered with one of my mother's old embroidered dish towels.  I was talking to 'apa this morning remembering the whole pigs that his best friend Tony would bring from Chicago.  They would be lying on the counter in our small kitchen: grotesque, comical, and common.  Right now I'm boiling the meat, 45 minutes.  Didn't get "Boston Butt" this time but it was labeled "pork for making carnitas".  Well, pork is pork is puerco, right?  So my father tells me how my mother made tamales for sale.  It was like her business.  She sold them for $3.50 a dozen.  My father would take the tamales in ice chests  to places like Western Electric and Metal ______ in Aurora, Illinois.  At Western Electric my dad would bribe the security guard with a dozen tamales and then he would take the ice chest to my mother's comadre.  La comadre would sell them for Dad at her workplace and she would get a cut.  They made $70-$80 per ice chest.  My mother did this all week long.  "It must have been a lot of work for her" I told him.  She wasn't working, he remarked.  She quit work when she got pregnant with you, and he walked out of the room.
 I think about her making tamales with me in her belly.  Making masa, chopping meat, surely drinking coffee...and pan dulce to offset the nauseting smell of boiling pork.  The meat is boiling. 
I clean the ojallas.  My aunt instructed, "Clean the ojallas one by one and soak overnight".  I did it in reverse, ignoring the first instruction and then doing it today while I trimmed them and put them into piles.  The advice seems tedious and unnecessary.  I do it anyway in case there is a reason for this advice or I may be able to skip this step next time.  It may be an outdated wisdom, no longer suited to the modern kitchen.  It isn't-the ojallas have debris and redddened cornsilk sticking to them and washing them one by one gets it all off.  Who wants to chomp on cornsilk when biting into a tamal?

1lb of meat makes two dozen tamales  I have 3lbs x 2= 6 dozen.  I need 4lbs of wet masa.  Should I make more?  No, I'll stick to the plan. 

Ok, meat ground up by food processor.  I feel like a big cheater.  Mama used to say "no saborear el mismo," but tia Ofelia, who is 77 by the way and her contemporary-says it doesn't matter.  I have mother's chite but, rather sheepishly I use my food processor.  Yasmin helps by pressing the button.  And then she tells me a great story about a little girl whose mother is making tamales.  The mom has a special ring and while mixing masa, the ring ends up being cooked into a tamal and eaten by a tio.  I love that they are telling stories like that in school. 

Right now I:

• Line the oval porcelain pot with ojallas.
• Seeded and washed three ounces of chile ancho
• Placed them in a simmering pot for 15 minutes. (Reserve chile pod water for adding to the masa.)

Cleaning as I go.  Dad helpfully offers to buy the 4lbs of masa in La Feria.  Now to grinding the spices garlic, comino and pimienta. 

Materials/Tools :

1. Pot with a lid for boiling meat
2. Food processor for grinding meat
3. White mixing bowl with spout for storing pork broth.
4. Colander for cleaning chile ancho
5. Plastic shoe box for storing damp ojallas
6. Large yellow bowl for mixing masa
7. Oval porcelain pot for cooking tamales**
8. Small pot with lid simmering chile ancho
9. molcajete for grinding spices
10. dishtowels!

**More on this tool later!

This year I'm using chile ancho because last year the masa sucked.  Flavor was bland, inauthentic.  Meat came out very tasty.  Scraping the pulpo from the chile anchos (used 3 oz about 6)  was tricky.  I fried about two tablespoons of Crisco and sauted 2 TBSP of garlic and added the meat, 1 1/4 TBSP of comino, pepper and salt.   NOTE:  Next time these steps,  making the meat and soaling the ojallas overnight,  should be Day One.  The meat sitting overnight with spices will marinade with the flavor.   Also,  add oregano.

Qué hubo?

My friends have been encouraging me to create a blog about cooking.  I am an a visual artist, I have a family, and I have  a  professional job in my field.  I am strongly tied to my Xicana culture and work to maintain cultural pride and hertiage for myself and my family.  The best way to do that is by maintaining old customs and/or creating new ones.  A big part of cultural hertage are celebrations and of course,  food.  I titled this blog "Tamalera Tejana" to show my Tejana pride and for me tamales are a food that is strongly linked to  keeping traditions alive, which isn't easy.  My mother Alicia Rodriguez De Luna was born in 1932, the oldest of ten children.  One of my earliest memories is of seeing a slaughtered pig on the kitchen table.  She could made tamales like she sewed and embroidered other beautiful things: with attention to detail, with skill.