AUNT BETTY’S TAMALE PIE

Mom told me that “It’s time for an agonizing reappraisal of things” is something that Aunt Betty used to say, so it is with thoughts of her that I post her tamale pie recipe.  

It is an old fashioned sort of recipe, with lots of cans of this and cans of that. This is Aunt Betty’s recipe as it is. Sometimes I use fresh tomatoes and I usually increase the amount of milk a bit. I also like to use lots of fresh corn, boiled for about 10 minutes and then cut off the cob, because I like the crunch that it gives. You can also add some garlic, diced hot peppers, and feel free to use your own fresh toasted and ground dried chilies with ground cumin added instead of chili powder. Occasionally I’ll serve it with enchilada sauce, or “chili gravy”. Topping it with cheddar cheese is nice, too, though after an agonizing reappraisal of things you may want to be light handed with the cheese.

This makes a large casserole. The measure that I use for a smaller casserole are in brackets to the right.

1 lb bulk sausage (well seasoned) ~ that would be home-made chorizo! [1/2 lb]

1 lg onion, chopped [1/2 lg]

¾ c milk (or more) [1/2 c]

¾ c ¾ c yellow or white corn meal [1/2 c –red cornmeal is nice too]

1 small can corn niblets [1/2 c]

½ c canned tomatoes, chopped [1/4 c]

½ c ripe olives, pitted and halved [1/4 c]

1 T chili powder (or more)

Fry sausage broken into small pieces, loosely. Add onion and brown all.

Add all other ingredients and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Transfer to casserole and bake for 1 hour, covered, in medium oven [a smaller casserole takes less time].

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE 5: GRINDING & CHORIZO + AUNT BETTY’S TAMALE PIE

So when I was in the midst of my recent Agonizing Reappraisal of Things, I was thinking that maybe I should write off making sausage and cheese. About sausage, Brian kept suggesting I use it like a seasoning and just eat a little bit of it at a time. And about cheese, Helen said, “I eat so little cheese anyway right now, I want to eat really nice stuff when I do.” And I started thinking that maybe I don’t have to give these things up entirely.

This month’s Charcutepalooza Challenge was to grind and make Chorizo, since it’s spicy

and flavorful, I also thought that I might be able to get away with making a less fatty

version. I know, that lovely fat is what gives sausages their succulent flavor and mouth

feel, and I know all about becoming one with a pork belly, but those test results are still

fresh in my mind, and I really don’t ever want to have to get intimate with gout! Brian did discourage me from using turkey, making such a nasty face about the idea, that I decided on being a little less gung-ho about it and going with a mix of  1.5 lbs pork shoulder to 1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs.

Mrs. Wheelbarrow has you blend the chiles in a slurry, which is an authentic Mexican technique, and also good for slathering on meat that you slow cook and pull apart for tacos. But I opted out of that technique this time as I tend to make a serious mess with a blender. I loosely followed Rhulman and Polcyn’s recipe, since I often find discrepancy between his US and metric measure, and I haven’t been able to figure out which should be the default.

Ever since I lived in New Mexico, I’ve kept a variety of dried chile peppers in my cabinet, to toast lightly and grind as needed. Each type has a distinct flavor, and for this I used a mix of 1.5 ancho chile to 1 each chipoltle, pasilla, and guajuillo chiles.

You have to love sausage to think that this looks delicious!

With it I made Aunt Betty’s Tamale Pie, next post.