My Secret Homemade Tamales Recipe

For meat filling:

Brown meat lightly on all sides, in the oil. Add onion & garlic & saute 2 minutes more. Add remaining ingredients for meat filling, plus enough hot water to cover. Bring to boil & then simmer, uncovered, until meat is very tender. You may need to add a little water now & then. Remove meat from pot & place on a large platter. Reserve liquid in pot. Allow meat to cool enough to handle, then shred very finely, by hand. Put meat back in pot with liquid & boil gently until you have about 1 cup of sauce remaining in pot..Thicken by sprinkling in cornmeal, stirring rapidly all the while, until you have a medium-thick consistency. Set aside while you prepare the masa. Follow directions on masa package for mixing, but also add the above masa filling ingredients. Remove corn husks from hot water & dry with cloth or paper towels. Spread the masa about 1/4 inch thick on smooth side of corn husk, being sure you leave about 3/4 inch uncoated at top & bottom of husk. Roll tamale up securely & fold bottom of husk up so that about 1 and 1/2 inches is folded up onto tamale.Repeat until all of meat filling & masa is used up. In a tamale steamer place hot water until it comes almost up to the steaming rack. Now place tamales in steaming-rack with the folded-up end resting on bottom of rack. You can pack the tamales in fairly tightly. Cover pot & steam tamales over gently boiling water until the tamales are firm to the touch (about 25 minutes). Remove carefully from pot & let cool about 10 minutes before serving.

Note: you can also make these with same amount of chicken or pork, if desired. Use same ingredients as for beef filling.