Mexican tamales are one of the most traditional dishes of Mexican cuisine. There is a great variety of flavors and colors depending on the region in which they are prepared, although it is clear that they are all incredibly tasty without a doubt, an example of this variety is the chicken tamales prepared in the southern regions of the country, specifically in the State of Chiapas, where they use a special plant called chipilín, which is added to the tamale dough giving it a different appearance and flavor, but no less rich for that. This time we present you some delicious Chiapas-style tamales combined with a simple chicken stew for its filling, an excellent Mexican recipe.
We invite you to join us in discovering these fascinating and delicious chipilín tamales with chicken!
Ingredients to make chipilín tamales with chicken:
- 1 kilogram of Massa for tamale
- 1½ cups of lard
- 2 cups of chicken broth
- 1 shredded chicken breast
- 2 cups of chipilin leaves
- 500 grams of red tomato
- 3 Serrano green chili
- 1 clove garlic
- ½ onion
- 30 dried corn leaves
- 1 pinch of salt
How to make Chipilín Tamales with Chicken:
Below we present an image with the ingredients that we will use to prepare the delicious chipilín tamales with chicken. To start making the Mexican tamales, we take the chiles and add them to a saucepan with boiling water, let them cook for 5 min. and then we add the red tomatoes to the same saucepan so that they cook together. As soon as we see that the skin of the red tomatoes comes off, we remove them from the heat and drain the water. We add the chiles first since those take a little longer to cook than red tomatoes. Once the red tomato and chili are cooked, add them to the blender along with the garlic, half of the chicken broth and a pinch of salt, then we proceed to blend perfectly to obtain a homogeneous sauce for the chicken tamales. We reserve a moment. On the other hand, we take the onion, slice it and place it in a pan with previously heated oil and let it fry for a moment.
Once the onion is ready, take the sauce that we reserved a moment ago and add it to season it. We move constantly for approximately 10 minutes. When the sauce of the Mexican tamales is well fried, we take the cooked and shredded chicken breast and add it to the sauce and incorporate perfectly well. Let everything cook together for about 10 minutes until the sauce thickens a bit. Once thick, we remove it from the heat and reserve for a moment.
On the other hand, we take the dried corn husks and put them in a deep container with enough water so that they soften and are more manageable when wrapping the chipilín tamales with chicken. Meanwhile, in a deep bowl, place the butter and cream it with the help of your hands. Once creamed, we add the tamale dough and incorporate them perfectly well. Now we add the chipilín leaves, perfectly washed and disinfected, to the dough with butter, and we incorporate everything perfectly well.
To soften the dough of the Mexican tamales and that it is not too thick, we add the chicken broth and incorporate very well. We take the already soft corn husks, place one on our palm and add a tablespoon of the dough that we prepared, spread it well over the corn husk trying not to overflow the edges.
We return to the chicken stew, take a spoonful of the stew and add it, right in the middle of the dough on the corn husk, close the corn husk and fold the leftover bottom tip back. This is how we will form the chipilín tamales with chicken. On the other hand, we take a steamer, we put a little water in the bottom, we place an aluminum grid and we cover it with pieces of the corn husks.
Once the water is boiling, we begin to place the tamales on the grid covered with the pieces of corn husk and place a piece of plastic covering the Mexican tamales and finally close with the lid, and cook them for about an hour.
Tip: We know that they are well cooked when the dough no longer adheres to the corn husk.
After this time and making sure that the chipilín tamales with chicken are well cooked, you can start enjoying them accompanied by a rich cookie atole on a cold day in the morning, for example.
