Some of my family gets together every year and makes tamales. I am normally the meat guy, kill/clean/cook/grind/season the meat etc and I make the chile sauce mixture for the meat. I have to work this year so only contributed the sauce this time. Been working 14 hr days but staying up getting it done in batches. Here's a few pics of the chile sauce....

Here is some of the ingredients. Chile Ancho, Chili Pasilla, Chili Guajillo, Chili Arbol, Chili Pequin....I love chiles.



The dried chiles are opened up and gutted (seeds removed). Here is the mild batch, chiles/onions/garlic.



The hot batch. Boil for 10-15 minutes then remove certain chiles and put in ice water, then scrape the pulp out and discard the skin. I strain the liquid and return all to pot, then to the blender...



At blender, I add most of my seasonings and more heat depending....

Oh yeah, I can see the love in those pictures!

Blend and return to pot, simmer down to thicken up if need be. This is the hot batch, guaranteed to feel the burn when tasting. One of my peeves is to see something labeled "HOT" and it's not. When I see HOT I want HOT, not watered down Yankee hot that = mild. It's just right, after you mix with the meat and stuff in masa....



Here they are getting after it. Only made 55 dozen today. Production has definitely slowed without me. We normally do 60-100 dozen and they go FAST! Anyway, thanks for lookin' folks....

Love there is Sir, the smell of the kinda sweet/smokey chiles mixed with the onions & garlic is off the chain. I can't stop sticking my face in the pot to smell while cooking.

I have a pig on ice that I was gonna de-bone tonight for smoked sausage, but posting instead. I'm pooped, can wait till tomorrow.....

That looks like a pot of HOT lava!

It does. I made it hotter last year, love it. I hope the other end of my mouth doesn't blow the whistle any time soon.

I'd sign up to be the tester on those!

O my that looks outstanding

Awesome, never made my own.

I've always wanted to learn how to make tamales, I love tamales!!! No one in my family would take that much time to work them up and I can't do it all by myself. We used to know a mexican lady that would do on the halves if we provided the meat, usually feral hog. They were amazing!!! dang, now you made me hungry!

Dang looks good skinner! I'm jealous, always wanting to make some. You grind the meat? or cook and shred?

We always grind the meat. I wanted to try the cook & shred last year but nobody agreed with me.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Tamales

I'm buying a dozen tomorrow.

Heck yeh, that'll make a meal.

Where do you buy them Bill? Back in '79 there was a lady that sold them roadside on hwy 6 a little north of hwy 90. $2 a dozen back then.

We get ours from the little Ladies at the Catholic Church, they make a big batch every year and they're great!

Good pics and great times.

I've never seen ground meat for tamales. Sounds interesting. Made some chile and shredded pork just this morning for tamales. Looks good Skinner.

Thanks buddy. Everybody around here grinds their meat. The only shredded meat tamales I've ever eaten (venison & pork) were homemade by some friends years ago, and to this day they are still the best I've ever had. I'm gonna make a small batch of shredded meat soon and play around with it.