I LOVE tamales. Love them. I discovered them when we moved to Ogden, and I can't get enough. Problem is, they are a. expensive and b. not that easy to make. I ran across a substitute on a food blog a few weeks ago that I thought might be acceptable. It wasn't. The leftovers languished and were tossed out. So I tweaked a few things, and it's better now. It's still not smothered tamales from Javier's in Ogden, but it's good enough to make every couple of weeks, and it's food storage friendly, which makes me happy. One of the kids ate it, and the other just at the cornbread off the top, but that's not too bad for a new meal.
The dish is a seasoned meat mixture topped with cornbread. The sauce from the meat mixes with the bottom of the cornbread, making that really good seasoned corn flavor that I love from real tamales. Overall, I like it, and I'm happy to have a new food storage recipe to add to my rotation.
Bottom layer:
1 pound ground or shredded meat. I used ground turkey, but chicken, beef, elk, or whatever is in the freezer or in a can on the shelf would work just fine. That strange TVP stuff might even work, but I haven't been brave enough to try it yet in anything. Or even buy it. Or even look at it too closely.
Onions. I used dehydrated, which I put in the pan with the meat when it was mostly cooked.
1 small can tomato sauce
2 small cans green chiles
Cumin
Red chili powder
Put meat in pan and brown it. Add the onions and brown them, then the other ingredients. Stir until cooked and seasoned.
Topping:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup corn meal
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 cup skim milk (or powdered substitute)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg or two egg whites (or powdered eggs)
Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat egg with a fork. Add milk and oil. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.
Put meat mixture in a square casserole dish. Spoon cornbread over the top. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.
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