And when I show you how to make Guatemalan tamales and these are different from your typical Mexican tamales in that they're wrapped in banana leaves and they're usually a lot larger than and Mexican tamale and really had a lot of fun figuring out how to make this and I hope that you enjoy it and big thanks to everyone who suggested.

Okay, the first thing we're gonna make is the sauce that goes inside the tamales or the IRA cattle are E C A t o.

Anyway, um, I'm going to start that by brewing some tomatoes and some red bell pepper.

I just took seeds out of these and some whole garlic clothes still in appeal.

But put these into the broiler for maybe, like, 10 minutes.

Give him a little twirl once in a while to get them really good and blackened.

And while that's happening, we're gonna go ahead and toasts, um, seeds in this skillet.

So I've got also a cinnamon stick that a cinnamon stick I've got, um, sesame seed.

These air hole sesame seeds and some raw pumpkin seeds.

Or repeat this.

You want to get these a little bit toasted?

I bet it, but we're kind of a medium high heat.

Just give that a few minutes, and this kind of reminds me of like a Mexican moly sauce.

Where's got all the nuts and seeds in it?

But you end up with a nice, thick and richly flavored salsa.

It's really quite delicious.

And then, while that's happening, I've got some guajillo chiles here.

This is what they look like, I guess.

Uh, Walker chili would be more, um, authentically Guatemalan, but I can't get those here.

So the Scorpio is a pretty good substitute.

I read on the Internet, so I've got three of those here, and I'm just put them into some boiling water kind of hokum down.

Don't stick your finger in the boiling water.

Just trying to reconstitute these a little bit.

Okay, so after a couple of minutes, they'll start to get a little bit toasted.

And then you wanna really keep a close eye on him at that point because once they start getting a little toasted, it's really easy to burn them.

But I can smell the cinnamon getting a little toasty.

I could see the smoke rising from the skillet, So Okay, I think we're actually good here.

I'm gonna dump these into my blender container.

So I have, like, a super super high powered blender.

You don't have something like this and you don't have a blender that you think will actually grind up seeds, and that's in cinnamon.

Then you could just use the spice grinder to do this part and then, like a regular blender or food processor to do the tomatoes and stuff later on so that I'm just gonna pulse this a couple of times to get these ground up into a little powder.

Okay?

Wow.

Yeah.

So that's what it looks like now you don't want to take it all the way to, like, nut butter, but no, but but, uh, that's good.

Then we can put in our chilies, which are nice and soft.

I'm gonna leave the seeds in, even though I think I think from what I read, it sounds like Guatemalan food is not quite a spicy.

Is Max concluded usually but haikus Passy, some go ahead and leave most of that stuff in there and let me check on my tomatoes real quick.

Okay, So this is what we've got here.

The peppers.

I'm not gonna put in the sauce.

I'm gonna set them aside over here in a bowl, cover it with a little plate, and we're just gonna let them steam.

And then later on, we'll peel the skins off.

Get in there, Okay?

And then I'm gonna start putting my tomatoes and be careful because they're hot dare And then the garlic.

Obviously when appealed a little ask whatever you call that.

A peel off the paper.

He Corey up, and then we're gonna blend this up, Have a little bit of chicken stock or something.

Ready?

I'm actually just gonna go ahead and put a little bit and to get it kind of going, and we just blend it till it's smooth.

Ya wei need at some assault needs to be very well seasoned and some chakotay or an auto seed.

Next, we need to strain the sauce to make sure that you don't end up with a new leg, lumps of cinnamon sticks and stuff like that.

And it'll take a while, so just do this until you have a very smooth sauce left in your punch.

Okay, so about 90 hours later, you'll have kind of a little thick paste left here and make sure you get all this goodness off the bottom of your sieve.

Now, I have this in a really deep pot because it will kind of, like splatter and pop.

And I don't want your pretty faces to get burned.

So now I'm gonna add a spoonful of Lord and about a pound of fairly lean pork that I have just cut into strips.

You could also do this with chicken.

And I saw a lot of recipes where you just put the raw pork in later, and it totally worked.

I tried it that way, but I don't know, I kind of like this method better.

And now I'm actually just gonna move this to my back burner and get all that pork down there in the sauce.

Just gonna put a lid on this kind of partially Just keep it from splattering everywhere and let that simmer for about 20 minutes while I make the masa for that.

I've got some massage, Dina, which if you have fresh masa You can also use that, and I'm going to mix it into the strap hot with some broth.

A whisk helps a little bit to get this masa in there without a bunch of lumps.

So I like to use about three cups of dry masa to about six cups of water.

But I saw recipes that made that used a much thinner masa.

And once it gets much thicker masa.

So I guess it's sort of a matter of preference and quite a bit of salt that'll depend a little bit on your broth, How salty that is.

So once you've got a smooth yeah, lump free masa porridge kind of thing here we can put on the heat and I'm a medium he.

And if you have a comically large spoon, this is the great time to use it.

So you just want to stir it constantly, kind of scraping the bottom to make sure that your muscle doesn't stick.

E.

So it's nice and thick.

Gonna add a bunch of more lard and stir that around until it melts.

This is a really good of a body workout, guys.

Okay, good.

So once it's smooth and thick and national lumps Looking good.

Turn it off, set it aside and start working on our banana leaf rappers.

If you can't find banana leaves, you can find him fresh in some places.

Um, frozen also, maybe.

Look there if you have, like, a Latin market.

Um, but I have some fresh ones here, so I'll show you what they look like.

Um, they come in like a big Zach, like a £5 sack and their enormous look.

It's like almost as tall as me.

Not really, but it's pretty damn tall.

So you want pieces about, like, this size for rolling your tamales and you want to make sure that you cut off this, um, stiff stiff rib in the middle.

So just with, like some kitchen scissors, something, Let's get rid of that.

That's gonna mess you up when you go to rule.

And if you can't find these, you can use sheets of aluminum foil or sheets of parchment paper to roll up your tamales.

I'm gonna make one stack that's like pretty ones that air for rolling.

And then I'll have another stack of like the messed up little pieces, like the ends and stuff And this is what we'll use to, like layer in the bottom and the top of our steaming contraption.

Okay, so I've got all my leaves, cuts to about the same size, and I've got a huge pot of water.

So we're gonna gonna blanche these leaves.

That's gonna get them, um, soft enough to use, I guess.

If you're using frozen ones, I think they're already blanched before you there.

Frozen.

So you could just thought him out just about a minute or so and then carefully lifted out and said it on another thing.

So I'm just gonna blanche all of these like that, and then we'll come back and finally show you how to assemble the tamales.

Yeah.

Hey, we're almost there.

We almost made it, guys.

Okay, Ready to roll?

Finally.

So you got your Blanche.

Ah, banana leaves.

You wanna set it so that the more ridge side is up?

If you run your finger along that, you can feel it's like a little, uh, accordion or like, a xylophone or something.

So you want a hefty amount of your masa down and then chunk of meat and use a little ladle to get lots of sauce in the middle there kind of push it down and then you can add whatever other kinds of, like garnishes.

You want some red bell.

Hubbard.

This is the bell pepper that we roasted earlier.

And then I peeled the skin off of it.

Some capers, some raisins.

I know this sounds like kind of a weird combination of things, but it's like salty and sweet and spicy and medial at once and some sliced olives.

And now I like to try my best to just roll it in the banana leaf.

But a lot of times it breaks and you end up using some foil kind of give it a little shake like that to get it down.

Fold this in full, this end and then whichever side feels more comfortable to you kind of pinch.

It was your fingers here.

Like wherever you feel the masa, you should be able to feel it kind of warm the end of the warmness warmth folded under and then give it a little shake to kind of tamp that down full this side under and there we go.

This one didn't tear it.

I'm kind of amazed.

That was my first try on camera.

So there we go.

We had our little Somali packet.

If it makes you feel more secure, you can wrap a little piece of string around it or wrap it up in some boil.

But I'm gonna take my chances and set this one aside and continue rolling tamales.

Once you've got all your Somalis were old, get your same big ass pot and we're gonna use all those little like bad pieces bad banana pieces to make a little sort of bed in the bottom of our pot.

And if you didn't have these, you could just use, like, a steamer basket or something, just something to keep the tamales out of the water.

And also, the banana leaves really do impart a nice like fresh, a floral, grassy, kind of kind of thing.

So the tamale, So if you can find him, it's good.

And then I'm gonna add about four cups of water and you see, I did end up using some foil on some of them.

Like as as I was wrapping them if the leaves broke and it seemed like the masa was gonna split out while they were cooking then just wrap it up in some foil.

Same way.

And I like to put the foil ones on the bottom.

Just since they have, they already have, like, an extra layer of protection against the water.

They could be a little closer to the water.

They're all in.

We'll cover it with another layer of banana leaves and put the lid on it and put it over heat and just let it steam for about an hour and 1/2.

If you were making these with raw meat inside them, you need to cook them more like two hours.

Uh, but yeah.

So just, um, keep an eye on it.

Make sure that steam is always coming outside around the lid if it's not the new, probably to add more water and then just carefully poured around the outside edges.

So you're not dumping it right onto the tamales?

Um, but yeah.

Okay, so I'll see you guys back in an hour and 1/2 and we'll eat some Tamara Tamara party.

Fiester that the malice.

Okay, I'll stop.

Okay, so I cooked him for 90 minutes and then just limbs that here in the pot, off the heat for about 20 minutes just to cool off a little bit so that they're not, like, so burning hot.

Look at this.

Beautiful.

All right, let's unwrap it.

They're not, uh they're not much to look at.

I'm telling you now, but they're tasty.

All right, well, I hope you really, really enjoy this recipe.

Um, it was so much fun to try this new type of tamale that I had never made before.

And I hope that you guys like the way I made them.

So check out highly cooking dot com for the pencil recipe as well as some other Guatemalan Christmas recipes.

And also, if you're looking for a Christmas gift for your loved ones, remember that I have some cookbooks you can purchase for people.

So also put a link to that.

And thank you so much for subscribing.

Thank you for watching him.

Because have a great, wonderful December.

And let's see what's happening here.

It kind of looks like a little abstract art thing.

Little circular, all of stripes in a wide smile.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, there you go.

There is how to make Guatemalan tamales, and I will see you guys later.

Bye.