Gather the following:

Ingredients:                   Materials:

-masa mix                    -your grandmother's tortillador            

-chicken breast            -mixing bowl                                 

-tomatoes                    -wooden spatula

-hojas de tamale          -the biggest ollas that you can find                     

-onion 

-chiles secos                                                                

-garlic                                               

-potatoes                                          

-manteca or butter                       

-jalapeños                                                                     

-your grandmother's

secret blend of seasoning 

-block of mozzarella cheese    

                             

First, you must wash the chicken the way your mother taught you. Cut all the fleshy, fatty bits off. Then in one of your big ollas, fill it up with water to submerge the chicken. After placing the chicken breast in, throw in some bay leaves, half an onion, cloves of garlic, and season your water with a spoonful of the secret blend. 

 

Grab the wooden spatula and mix the pot. As you stir, you will see the swirls of flavor marrying together. You'll smell the aromas in the humid air of the warm kitchen, and it will stir up the memory of when your mother told you how she was promised to a man she never met. Before arriving in America, she was pledged to a man four years her senior by her brother. At sixteen years old, she said goodbye to her homeland, not knowing when or if she would return and traveled to a foreign land, where she was forced to wed a stranger. 

 

While the chicken is cooking in the olla, immerse the tomatoes and chiles secos. Allow everything to wrinkle and expand until tender. In the meantime, cut strips of the cheese and jalapenos and set those aside.  

 

Once the chicken is almost done and the tomatoes and chiles start peeling, place the tomatoes, chiles, the cooked onion and garlic, and some of the fresh chicken broth in the blender. Blend until combined into a burnt orange sauce. Watching the blades cut into the ingredients, you will think back to the first time you visited Mexico. You witnessed your grandmother swinging her butcher knife down on a chicken's neck as the chicken struggled against her. The brutality scared you. You remember her calmly walking away, carcass in hand. Hours later, a steaming bowl of caldo de pollo was set in front of you to enjoy. 

When the chicken is done, take it out and save the broth. In the same olla, strain the sauce to remove all the seeds. On low heat, let the sauce simmer and season with your heart. Shred the chicken like tingia and mix it into the sauce and continue to let it simmer. As you watch steam and bubbles escape the heat, you're brought back to the moment when the caldo was set in front of you. You watched your grandmother serve everyone first and made sure there were enough tortillas, queso fresco, limón, and salsa for all. You watched her observe everyone. Later, you would see her serve herself a bowl of broth and vegetables after everyone else finished eating. She ate quietly as she finished the leftovers at the table. 

 

Time to start making the masa. Start with a large, clean mixing bowl and pour out the entire bag of tamale mix. Using your God-given tools, mix your dry ingredients with enough salt. Start adding manteca or melted butter to your bowl and mix. Add enough fat to combine the dough. Once you see the dough begin to form, add a little of the saved chicken broth into the masa and combine. Repeat the process of adding broth and folding it in until a firm dough is created. Be careful when mixing in hot broth. As you feel the liquid heat up your skin as you quickly mix, you're reminded of the countless times you saw your mother slaving away in the kitchen. After a 10-hour shift at work, she would return home, change out of her work clothes and change into her apron. Leaving one job to the next. 

 

Don't forget to taste the masa for flavor.

 

Now to assemble-get together your chicken, cheese, and jalapeños on one side of your workspace. On the other side, place the tortillador and hojas de tamale with your masa in the middle. Put your biggest olla, which is one-quarter of the way filled with water and a rack inside to steam the tamales, on a chair that is near you. 

 

Grab a ball of masa about the size of your palm and place it in the center of the tortillador that has a layer of plastic on both sides to prevent sticking. Press the tortillador down to flatten the masa, then layer the flattened masa on the smooth side of a hoja de tamale. Fill your tamale with either chicken or a piece of cheese and jalapeños. Once filled, fold the tamale to secure all the filling and place it inside your olla. Separate your different tamales as you set them in the olla. Repeat this process until you have finished either the masa or fillings. 

 

As you continue making your tamales, you will remember your mother's cries when the news reached her that her mother died. You can count on your hands the number of times you have seen your grandmother. Your mother can also count on her hands the number of times she has seen her mother since leaving her villa. Sorrow fills your mother as she watches her mom buried through her phone, unable to say goodbye until months later. The grief was palpable through the phone.

 

After making your tamales and setting them all nicely in your olla, if there is still room in your olla, place a couple of potatoes inside to prevent the tamales from moving. To help create the sauna needed for the tamales, place any extra hojas de tamale on top of your creations and cover with a lid. Lift with your legs as you move your olla onto the stove and turn the burner to medium heat for two hours.

 

Lifting the big olla may be straining after all that labor. The strain will make you recall one Christmas, years ago, when you lived in a shelter with your brother and mother. With a swipe of a SNAP card, she was able to afford a Christmas feast that you remember to this day. Mashed potatoes soaking in gravy and corn buttered to perfection on the side of the main dish, tamales de pollo en salsa roja. You licked your plate clean that night. You were too young to notice the heavy burden your mother carried. The constant worry of where your next meal was coming from, if he would ever find you, and how as a single mother of two she was going to rebuild her life from scratch at 33 years old.

 

Step 7: 

After two hours have passed and your kitchen smells like you invited the gods of flavor, take a tamale out to taste test. The tamale should fall right out from the hoja. Taking a bite out of the fresh tamale will make you want to cry. You will want to cry because you feel your mother's resistencia, your grandmother's steadfastness, and the courage within them both with every bite you take. Because of them, you can enjoy this ancestral recipe. The tamale tastes like love. Like the hope your grandmother had as she watched her youngest daughter migrate to America. Like the determination that burned within your mother to provide everything she could to her kids, ignoring her own needs. 

 

As you continue eating the tamales, the love within the food will move you to share with those close, passing on the love your ancestors gave you. 

 

Don't forget that leftover tamales, warmed on the comal the next day, are god tier.