I’ve mentioned my love of Tamales a few times and was tickled to learn how to make my own a few years ago! This year for our cousin Christmas party my Brother in Law and sister and I made a huge batch! They brought the green chicken tomatillo filling (that I’ll share another time) and I was in charge of the red pork filling! I scoured the internet and found a great recipe!
Crock-pot red pork tamale filling
3-3½-lbs boneless pork shoulder or Boston butt, cut into 3-inch chunks and trimmed
1 medium white onion, roughly chopped
6 medium cloves garlic, lightly smashed and peeled
4 dried bay leaves, toasted
2 to 3 sprigs fresh thyme, marjoram, or mild oregano, or 1 Tbs. dried Mexican oregano
20 dried red chiles: guajillo, New Mexico Big Jim and/or Ancho – they all work well
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Black peppercorns
First de-stem and de-seed your chilies
Soak the red chilies in hot water until they are soft. Weight them down, I used another bowl on top of the chilies. The recipe called for 20, but they are such different sizes I wasn’t sure how many to do, this mixture of chilies tasted great, but I wish I’d added even more (but I like it spicy)
Toast your bay leaves however you like. I cooked them in a dry skillet over low heat on the stove.
Your chilies should be nice and soft now, put them in a blender, but retain the chile water (use gloves or tongs)
Add the garlic, onion, thyme, marjoram, oregano, salt and pepper with the chilies to the blender and blend until smooth.
If it’s too thick or not blending well add some of your chile water to the blender. I used about half a cup
In a large enough bowl so the meat can be covered (or in a large gallon size zip-lock freezer bag, like me), add the cubed pork and smother with the chile mix so that it can marinate for a minimum of 3 hours.
After marinating for a sufficient amount of time, add the meat and the chile mixture to your slow cooker and cook on low overnight (or all day depending on what time your going to make your tamales, you want a good 8 hours).
When it’s done shred the pork and your ready to go! This recipe is not only great for tamales, but we ate the leftovers in burritos, taco’s and anything else you can think of, even by itself (mmmmm) over the next few days.
Serve with your favorite Beans, salsa and sour cream!
