I tried to cook something new tonight and it was an abjectfailure: Tamales. The wound is still fresh but let me explain.
I found a simple recipe for shredded chicken tamales and wasable to work the cornhusks and dried chilies, and tamale masa into the budgetlast week.
So, three hours before my dh was due home, I started makingthem. It took a lot of steps but nothing was really hard, per se. The chickenwas fresh from our farm(we had just butchered all 50 of them a couple of daysago) so I cooked a package of breasts. Then I mixed the Masa. Then cleaned,roasted, soaked and blended the chilies, soaked the corn husks and startedworking.
Making tamales took forever. By this, I meanfor-flippin-eva! I ended up with 25 of them, all nestled into my metal colanderthat I had jammed halfway down in a stock pot as a makeshift steamer of sorts.
I cooked them for 40 minutes, while I made brown rice with onions and green peppers/seasonings. Man, I was so proud of my self! I thinkthat was the problem. One can not get too cocky when cooking for family.
With a platter of tamales and a big bowl of Mexican ricewaiting, I called the troops to the table. The 4 yr old was horrified and toldme they smelled of mouse poop (unsure how he made THAT connection) the 9 yr oldstomped up the stairs, took a look and stomped right back down again. The 13 yrold ate one tamale out of pity, taking the entire dinner to gag it down and the16 yr old just ate a couple but told me they were awful. He has a hollow legand is like that rat on Ratatouille who eats stuff without caring if it is goodtasting. He is just hungry, man…The baby was asleep but she had already eatenone so she got a free pass.
I thought they were tremendous! My husband thought they wereboring and plain. He said they needed hot sauce(which he was more than welcometo add, but for the kids? Puleeze).
I cried. It was just sad.
NO more tamales for our family.
L
Ha ha ha! I'm so sorry, but yeah, sometimes it's like that, huh? Tomorrow, let them eat sponges. Just kidding. I would be glad to try them, especially since they took “for-flippin-eva” and I would be nice and polite about it. Hey, I appreciate your effort!
I like to think of myself as more like a wormhole then 'that rat from ratatouille', it sounds cooler to the ladies.
I could identify with your evening so totally!! But thank god for people who don't hide what they think of your offering. Thank god for people who hated what you made last night, but still show up at the table. Thank god for crazy critical family!