The Tamale Casserole from Veracruz Recipe (Tamal de Cazuela)
The Tamale casserole is a mexican dish that uses the same ingredients as if making traditional tamales but cooked first in a pot or high walled skillet, and then baked in the oven, instead of being wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves before getting cooked by steaming. Basically you have a layer of tamal dough, some kind of meat stuffing laid over it then more tamal dough on top.
Recipe for Tamal de Cazuela
Ingredients
* 2 lbs. (1 kg.) tamal corn flour (about 7 cups of corn flour)
* 1 cup liquid chicken broth, more if necessary
* 2 cups (400 g.) lard or shortening, at room temperature and whipped
* tablespoon of chopped epazote leaves
* 1 tablespoon yeast or baking powder
* 2 and 1/2 lb. (1 kg.) pulled pork, or chopped chicken
* 3 Chiles (ancho, mulato or pasilla) roasted, deveined and minced
* 1 tomato, seeded and roasted and ground
* 1 sprig of epazote, or hoja santa
Preparation
2) Pour the melted lard in the flour and broth, and mix in the hoja santa and salt. Cook this over low heat, stirring constantly until the dough becomes thick and comes off cleanly and easily from a spoon.
3) Remove from heat and stir until it whitens, at this point add the baking powder, integrating it into the dough; if using yeast wait 30 minutes.
4) Prepare a pepper sauce by blending peppers, tomatoes and hoja santa, which we pour in another pot once liquefied. Mix in the sauce the meat or chicken to it, then cook until this sauce has thickened and is cooked. Adjust seasoning with salt.
5) Place a layer of dough in a deep baking dish, pour the pepper with meat sauce over the bottom dough and how to cover another layer of dough thicker than the first. Put it in the oven at 350 °F until the top browns.
Cut the tamal de cazuela like a cake and gently serve, using a spatula; I added some avocado slices, salsa verde and some red bell peppers with red onions as side dishes in the photo above.
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