1930's Canadian Tamale Pie Recipe
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1930’s Canadian Tamale Pie Recipe. Welcome Friends! Today on the Old Cookbook Show, we are going to make a 1930’s Depression era Canadian version of …
Stripped down to a T shirt at 2:40 when it got too steamy in the double boiler room.
Back to my Roots ~ Homemade Pork Tamales by Whippoorwill Holler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL79rkAE_5Q
I sure would like to be able to try one of your recipes today but the damn grocery stores are empty and I damn thing on the Shelf
I would have liked to see the California version of the recipe in the post as well.
Thanks
P.S. I’m so excited that one of the next few recipes is the KFC finale (or at least an update on the recipe.) I almost dies holding my breath 😉
It looks like a north of the border version of what we in Mexico call Tamal de Cazuela. There's a few variations on it, but at its most simple:
Make your masa and filling for tamales as you would to make individual ones.
Line a baking dish (that will fit inside a steamer) with either corn husks or banana leaves. Spread half of your masa, then filing, then top with the rest of the masa. More leaves, seal it tight with aluminum foil and steam until done (about 1 hr). Some mix the masa and filing instead of doing layers, in some areas the masa is partially pre-cooked, etc.
Moooooo York city?!?!?!
I really want to see that FRESH TONGUE – TOMATO sauce now. I've definitely never seen the phrase "tongue liquor" before.
Also, that's a weird series of 3 dishes to be right next to each other in an un-ordered fashion.
Stay Classy Planet Earth
We had a lady in church that would make "tamale casserole". It was incredibly easy and junkie in the most magnificent way. She would take a bunch of tamales norteños and top them with hormel chili; then she would top that with a pound of cheap cheddar and stick the whole thing in an oven for 350°F for 30 minutes. Any kind of tamales norteños would do (beef, chicken, bean).
Love these Sunday morning Old Cookbook Shows. Great history and background to all of the recipes.
That's a Mexican cottage pie.
I'd make a thin corn meal base, bake it egg wash seal it then top it with corn bread with cheese on top..
My family always made tamale pie with a biscuit/bisquick crust more like a pot pie rather than with the polenta topping. The filling was more or less the same though. Another recipe that is a very similar concept and flavor profile but with a little less work is the frito pie where you use frito corn chips instead of a crust and just dump the beef mixture on top of them (along with taco toppings like cheese and olives and tomatoes) and bake it. The chips absorb all of the liquid that comes off the beef mixture and you end up with basically a very similar effect to the cornmeal topping you made.
Try perhaps 1 tsp cayenne instead of 4 next time lmao.
I never had this dish or anything with "flavor" until my teenage years, in the early 1980s. The closest thing to Tex-Mex my Mom cooked was Chilli. Her Chilli was nothing more than 1/2 teaspoon Chilli Powder, kidney beans, tomato juice and about three pounds beef, with a small onion, diced. We ate it in bowls but could have been served on a plate since it was basically the consistency of Sloppy Joes. (No toppings, condiments or sides were served with the bowl of bland, ground meat) 100% understand, "The world of flavor" you were amazed by!! To this day, flavor, texture and consistency, are important to me. Thanks for sharing the recipes!
never made this, but I'm pretty sure I have that exact casserole dish with a glass lid, cost me all of eight Australian dollars, coincidentally I've just started playing around with cornmeal and I used it to set my leftovers overnight, made for some pretty tasty sides.
If you read the tongue recipe above it at the end, it calls for one cup tongue liquor. WTF is tongue liquor?
Needs corn and sliced black olives…
Grew up near Detroit in the 60's. Tex-Mex was just as unknown to us then as it was to you later in the 70's. With the exception of one small restaurant where questionable teens (none of them Hispanic) were thought to hang out. Moved to Texas in the Houston area as an adult in '76. A revelation.
There's an Arizona recipe using turkey, black beans, and chipotles in adobo. Sounds muuuch better!
Yum!
So going to make this!
And yes I will add corn & olives. Chili powder instead of cayenne pepper.
❤
It's interesting to see a Canadian version of this. Also, Chef John probably time travelled to write this.
It seams the same as our Cornbread Casserole.
Its basically what we call Pastelle Pie in Trinidad & Tobago. Great recipe.
I dunno, man. It looks like it might be pretty okay with a drier dough made of masa instead of cornmeal, and with shredded meat instead of hamburger. Maybe with some red tamale sauce instead of canned tomatoes, too.
Your partner’s cough & nose turning red could be a warning . . . or a recommendation, depending on one’s affinity for spice!
The California one is more like a Mexican goulash.
I am not a cake person so my Grandmother would make me tamale pie for my birthday but her recipe was different. Sounds more like the other one. First, I don't do well with onions so we just use onion powder. It works. We also use Chili powder and corn and also had all of the beef mix on the bottom with the corn meal and Parmesan cheese on top. My wife still makes it for me on my birthday. I love it.
I've had something similar to what he made in the video but it was called Taco Bake, it had cheese on top of the meat layer and served with cheese and sour cream on top. It was made with a cornbread batter, hamburger meat, a jar of salsa. Prepare your cornbread batter put a layer on the bottom of casserole dish then prepare your hamburger meat and add a jar of salsa, and put on top of the cornbread layer in the casserole dish, sprinkle with cheese and add the rest of the cornbread batter.
As a brit I've never heard of tamale pie before. We don't tend to use corn meal in Britain either. It might be worth trying but I'd probably go for a lasange or cottage pie over this
Having grown up in El Paso, I cringed a little on this one (no cumin??)…..still, always fun to watch you cook!
I'm visiting Niagara Falls in June. I was born in 1966 in Tennessee at 8 years old we moved to California near Santa Monica and that was my first experience with Mexican food.
I make tamale pie using crushed tortilla chips. Great way to use up stale chips. I put most of the cheese under the chips then top with salsa and cheese for the last ten minutes
Just use basic taco seasonings. Cumin, Chili powder, garlic powder. Mexican oregano is optional, i use it sometimes but it has to be the mexican kind. I prefer fresh chopped onions to the powdered kind though. Those ingredients are basically what taco seasoning mix is.
The tamale pie I grew up eating is the meat mix (both beef and pork) plus tomatoes and olives, and the top is cornBREAD, and is topped with melted cheese.
Hi Glen, I would like to know your creative version to a 2020 Tamale Pie, i was thinking green chiles apart of the batter could be interesting, how would you? Love ❤️ from Detroit 💋
I remember my Mom making a tamale pie from some sort of package kit (maybe it was Old El Paso or Dennison’s) where you add browned ground beef and the kit supplied a can of seasoned tomatoes and beans and a cornmeal mix you added water to. Nothing spectacular but it was an easy weeknight meal to whip up after work. I about gagged when I saw how much Cayenne you added and knew someone (poor Julie) was going to be surprised! Until watching this video I had not thought about tamale pie for years. I get almost like homemade tamales from Costco.
When you were sprinkling in the cayenne, I instantly thought back at the last video you made with something spicy… 😂
yum
We make a southwest chili topped with a cornbread crust that is amazing.
Here is my wife's recipe.
Tamale Pie
For the Filling:
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork
1 sweet onion, peeled and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup frozen corn
15 ounces crushed tomatoes (1 can)
4 ounces chopped green chiles (1 can)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons chile powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
For the Tamale Top:
2 1/4 cups corn flour (masa)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Sour cream – optional.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Spray two 9-inch pie pans, one 9 X 13 inch baking dish, or a 12-14 inch cast iron skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
Place a large saute pan (or cast iron skillet) over medium heat. Add the ground meat and break into small pieces. Brown the meat, then push it to the sides of the pan and add the chopped onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Cook until the onions have softened. Then mix in the frozen corn, crushed tomatoes, green chiles, cornstarch, chile powder, cumin, salt and cheese. Stir well and turn off the heat.
Meanwhile, mix the corn flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add in the chicken broth, crushed red pepper and butter. Whisk until smooth. Then stir in the cheese.
Pour the meat filling into the prepared pans.
Pour the corn batter evenly over the top and spread to the edges of the pans. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the corn batter comes out clean. Serve warm with a dollop of sour cream if you like.
I have "perfected" (in my own mind) a tamale pie recipe. In it, I use most of the cornbread (less than that recipe uses and it includes flour and leavening) on the bottom, has more ingredients in the filling like corn and poblano peppers and I dollop the top cornbread on top to leave room for steam to escape. I also cook the filling to a thicker consistency. As I recall, it also uses taco seasoning in the filling. I bake mine in a 9" pie plate. If anyone is interested, I'd gladly post the recipe.
Entertaining video, I enjoy the historical aspect you bring to your recipes. There's hundreds of Tamale Pie recipes, everyone thinks theirs is best, kind of like spaghetti. I found one that I really like, you build it in a cast iron skillet and bake it, comes out very nice, fluffy cornbread (masa) layered with meat sauce and a crispy, cheesy top and crust. But I like how you often use old recipes from your neck of the woods and experiment with them, even when they don't turn out like you imagined it's interesting.
I cook mine the same. But when it comes to spice i use taco seasoning. In my opinion actual tamales are too bland and unnecessarily hot
Have you done a bibimbap recipe? I love the sauce for that dish.