Dana Page's TAMALES

Ingredients

For the tamales:
- 1 package of corn husks
- 15 lbs. prepared tamale dough
- 2lbs. pork shoulder (pierna/massisa)
- Dash of salt

For the red sauce:
- 1 bag/ 1 oz. of California chile pepper pods
- ½ clove of garlic
- Dash of salt
- 1 ½ cups of water
- About 1 tablespoon of oil or grease


To prepare the meat:
-You can use any meat of your choice or no meat at all. I think the only requirement is that it needs to be tender. For the pork I boiled it with salt, to taste, until the pork was tender.
Set aside.

For the Sauce:
-Grind the peppers and garlic together in a blender with about a 1 ½ cups of water. Remove from the blender and sauté in a pan with grease or oil for about 10 minutes or until thickened. Set aside.

Folding the tamales:
-Dip the corn husks in water for about 10 minutes. When the corn husks are moistened you can begin the process of folding the tamales. Take the prepared dough and flatten it out into a circle on the corn husk. It should be about ¼ inch to ½ inch thick. The dough should not be outside of the husk. Add your ingredients, in this case some red sauce and pork, into the center of the dough.
Fold the husk closed. (Fold the left side over, then the right side, then fold the bottom up.) All the dough should be contained tightly in the tamale.

Cooking:
-Place the tamales in a steam pot. (This can be any big pot with a grate at the bottom, with holes that separates the tamales from the water.) Steam on an open flame for approximately 1 ½ hours, depending on the amount of tamales or until fully cooked. Enjoy!