Tamales de Pollo Salvadoreños
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Tamales de pollo are one of my favorite Salvadoran food. It's made with corn flour dough (masa), stewed chicken, choice of vegetables and wrapped in a banana leaves. Tamales are eaten year round, you can typically hear someone yelling "TAMALES!" at 6 am every day in front of my abuelita's house in El Salvador. In the US my mom typically makes tamales during the holidays because they are a labor of love!
This recipe will take you through the full process from start to finish. Please remember that you can substitute or add any ingredients that soothe your soul. The most simple tamal is filled with stewed chicken and maybe a piece of potato but you can find tamales with a green bean, boiled egg, an olive, garbanzos, carrots, etc,. They key is to make it to your liking and the same goes with the seasoning. Taste test as you go and adjust to your preference.
How to make Tamales Salvadoreños?
There is quite a few steps to this process so I've broken it up into four parts below in order of execution. The ingredients are also listed for each step but essentially most of them are the same in each step.
1. Chicken and other fillings: This was enough chicken for about 50-60 tamales and we had about a cup left over. If you don't want to make this many cut the recipe in half.
Ingredients:
2 whole chickens
3 tbsp chicken bouillon
11/2 green bell pepper
12 tomatoes
3 celery stalks
1 1/2 white onion
6 garlic cloves
Salt to taste
2 bay leaves
Water
Pepper to taste
2 tsp Cumin
1 tsp achiote (Ground anatto)
1 cup of chicken broth from the chicken
1-2 tbsp of olive oil (or preferred oil)
Potato: This is an additional filling that the tamales will have, choose your preferred additional fillings. This can be green olives, chickpeas, carrots, green bean, boiled egg... this is optional.
Wash (or don't) and cut the chicken into pieces.
Cut up the vegetables for the chicken broth: 2 tomatoes, 1 green bell pepper, 3 celery sticks,1 onion and peel 4 garlic cloves.
Place a big pot on med-high heat and add in the cut up vegetables, chicken pieces, enough water to cover the chicken and the following seasonings: 1 tbsp chicken bouillon, 2 tsp of salt, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp of pepper. Cook until chicken is tender and the broth has boiled and turn off the stove. Taste test and adjust seasonings as it cooks.
Take the chicken out and place it on a tray to cool down. Leave the broth and vegetables in the pot to cool down as well. You will use the broth and vegetables for the tomato sauce and for the masa in the next steps so do not discard it.
While the chicken cools down make the tomato sauce for the stew. Cut and prepare the rest of your vegetables: 10 tomatoes, 1/2 green bell pepper, 1/2 white onion, 2 peeled garlic cloves, 1 tsp of salt or to taste, 1 tsp of pepper or to taste, 2 tsp cumin, 1 tsp achiote, 1 tbsp of chicken bouillon or to taste and 1 cup of the chicken broth. Blend everything until smooth and set aside.
Once the chicken if cooled down enough, shred it into small pieces removing cartilage, skin and bones.
Place a sauce pan on med-high heat and add in 1-2 tbsp of olive oil or preferred oil. Add in the shredded chicken season it with 1 tbsp chicken bouillon and salt and pepper to taste. Stir fry for about 5 minutes and then add in your tomato sauce. Mix everything well, cover and let it come to a boil. If the sauce seems too liquid, boil it without the cover for an additional 5 mins to consume excess water. The sauce needs to be thick so that it won't run off when adding it to the tamal.
Remove the chicken from the heat and let it cool.
Peel and prepare any other fillings. We chose to make our tamales very simple with just the typical piece of potato. The vegetables needs to be cut into long rectangular pieces if possible. If you want to add in boiled egg, I recommend 1/4 of the egg cut longways. The olives and chickpeas can be whole and usually just one of each in a tamal. Put each additional ingredient in a bowl and set it to the side.
2. How to prepare the banana plant leaves: These can usually be purchased in latin/hispanic grocery stores if you don't have any of your own. These need to be in good state and not be torn. You should be able to cut large enough pieces to wrap your tamales in. You can always put more than one piece but it will be harder to wrap in some cases. The objective is to wrap the tamal in the banana leaf and then wrap it in aluminum foil for additional support and protection from the water during the cooking process.
Supplies:
Banana plant leaves
Aluminum foil
Remove the stem that runs through the leaf. If you purchased the leaves from a grocery store they have most likely already done this.
Cut the leaf into pieces big enough to wrap the tamal. This is around 7in x 7in depending on how big or small you want to make the tamales.
Rinse each piece of leaf in water and use a new sponge to lightly scrub the front and back of the leaf.
Set the griddle on medium-high heat.
Place each piece of leaf on the griddle for about 3-4 seconds on each side. The leaf will start to change color as it heats up. This will make the leaf more manageable and keep it from tearing during the wrapping process. Do not leave it too long as the heat will cause it to shrivel up.
Cut aluminum foil into pieces that are 1 inch more than the banana leaf.
Place a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of banana leaf on top. This is one wrap, make as many as you need. We planned for 60 tamales so we prepared 60 pieces of aluminum foil and 60 pieces of banana leaf. We ended with 53 tamales.
3. How to cook the masa (dough): You will need big containers or pots for this step. The masa is made by combining flour with the chicken broth, sauce and lard. It's then cooked to thicken it up to get the consistency shown in the video below.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds of Maseca white corn flour or 8 cups
2 tomatoes
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 white onion
all the veggies from the chicken broth
2 tsp of ground cumin
2 tsp of ground pepper
1 tbsp of chicken bouillon
1 tbsp of salt
2 tsp of achiote molido (ground anatto)
20 cups chicken broth
3 cup of lard: Substitute this with a veggie lard if preferred.
Prep and cut the tomatoes, bell pepper and white onion into small-medium pieces and add them to the blender
Strain the broth to separate the cooked veggies from the broth. Add the cooked vegetables to the blender as well.
Add the cumin, pepper, chicken bouillon, salt, ground anatto, 1 cup of chicken broth and blend until smooth. Taste test and adjust seasonings to your taste.
In the biggest empty pot you have, pour in the sauce we just blended and add in the 2 1/2 pounds of white corn flour. Then add in 8 cups of the chicken broth and start to dissolve the flour into the liquid. We added a total of 18 cups of broth to get it to our desired consistency.
Add in 3 cups of lard and dissolve in the mixture as well. The key here is to dissolve the flour completely, this is normally done with our hands but you can also use a whisk or use the tool of your preference.
Once the consistency is smooth and runny, place the pot on the stove in a medium to high heat. You will need to stir the mixture at all times to prevent it from sticking to the bottom. It will be done once the dough boils which takes about 10-15 minutes. If at any point the dough sticks to the side of the pot or starts to get too hard, add in more chicken broth and lard.
Once it comes to a boil, take it off the heat and keep stirring for the next two minutes. Set aside and let it cool.
If you don't have a big enough pot or container you will have to do this in batches. Divide ingredients based on how many batches you'll have to make. If you have a big enough container mix it all at once and just divide the cooking portion into batches. I will post all videos on IG and TikTok under @flourishwithg if you want to see videos on the dough.
4. How to wrap and cook the tamales: We're almost there! This is the fun part in my opinion. To make this an efficient process, set up a wrapping station. All ingredients for the most part should be cooled. We should start wrapping no more than 10 mins after our dough is done so that it doesn't get too hard. The wrapping station needs to include the chicken and additional fillings, the banana leaf wraps, the dough and the pot that you will be cooking the tamales in. If you don't have a pot that will fit all of them at once, cook them in batches.
Prepare the pot: If you have steamer tray for your pot you can place it in but it's not necessary. Then place banana leaf scraps or leftovers on the bottom of the pot or top of the steamer tray. As you wrap the tamales, start to stack them horizontally on top of the banana leaves.
Set the stack of wraps in front of you
Scoop about 1/3 of a cup of dough onto the center of the banana leaf on your wrap. Make a light dent in the middle of the dough.
Add you fillings in the middle of the dough. Add as much chicken and sauce as you want, and a piece of each additional ingredient. In my case I added a piece of potato and piece of carrot on top of the chicken. Be careful not to add too many things as it may make it harder to wrap.
Grab the edge of the banana leaf furthest from you and fold it towards you to shape the dough into a cylinder shape and then put it back down. By shaping this side first, it will make it easier to wrap it. Now grab the edge of the banana leaf closes it to you with both hands and fold it over the dough until it covers it all. With both hands press it towards you a bit and flip it to fully wrap it. Do not tighten too much as it needs a bit of room to expand a bit as it cooks.
Move the tamal wrapped in the banana leave 2inches from the edge of the aluminum foil piece. Grab the edge of the aluminum foil closest to you and with both hands fold it over the tamal, press it towards you a bit and flip it as many times as needed until the entire piece of aluminum is wrapped around the banana leaf.
Press down lightly on the sides of the tamal were the tamal ends and fold the flaps under the tamal. Be careful and don't tighten it too much as it will cause it to burst through the sides and aluminum as it cooks.
Place horizontally in the pot. Once the pot if full and has about 1 inch of room left up top add in the water. Fill up the pot with water up 1/3 of the pot. Then place more banana leaf scraps on top and add the lid. Place the pot on medium to high heat and let it cook for 45-60 mins or until the vegetables are fully cooked inside. About 45 mins into the cooking open up a tamal from the top and make sure the vegetables are fully cooked.
Once the vegetables are fully cooked, turn off the heat and let the tamales rest for about 1-2 hours before serving them.
Once they are fully cooled down you can freeze them in air tight bags or vacuum sealed bags. In my experience they are good frozen for up to 3 months. When you are ready to eat them, the best way to re-heat them from frozen is by steaming for 10-15 minutes with the aluminum and banana wrap on.
If you have any questions please leave a comment below or on Instagram/Tiktok/Facebook. As always all videos with visuals will be posted on @flourishwithg on all social media sites. I hope you all truly enjoy making this recipe with your loved ones as much as I did.
