Tamale Talento

This past Sunday was me and Rocio's turn to do the talento for after service. As Nicole explained in her last post, this is where a couple ladies make food and sell it after the service. We decided to make tamales - Rocio offered to get a head start on everything Saturday night but I said no way, sistah - I want to see the magic happen from the beginning!

We started out by chopping vegetables and soaking the leaves of the corn that you wrap tamales in. They are pretty brittle and need to soften up before putting dough in them.

 Sara and I walked to the the little store where some ladies make tortillas by hand. We bought 7 kilos of corn maiz (dough). They have the grinding machine right there - the lady brought out a huge bucket of whole kernels and dumped them in the platter on top the grinder. Out of the bottom of the machine came whipping out yummy, warm dough.

 Sara and I watched the whole process - it smelled really good :D

 We got back to the house and Rocio "showed" me how to make the salsa that was to go in the tamales. A few of this kind of chile, a couple of those chiles, a bunch of tomatoes, four chicken bouillon cubes, and voila! The salsa is made!

 After making the salsa, we had to make the dough. I'd like to skip this part and pretend it never happened, but...I'd be fudging the truth. Tamales have a lot of grease in them. It is very unhealthy. I am embarrassed to admit that I was in charge of pouring in the lard.... I hang my head in shame. 

As I poured, Bella worked the dough, mixing and punching at it.

 We then made about 100 balls of dough that would be put inside a corn husk with salsa and chicken. 

Grab a ball of dough, spread it flat into the corn husk, put a spoonful of salsa and chicken mix in...

...then tie it up! 

We had previously ripped a bunch of corn husks into strips that were used for tying the ends up.

 It took us about an hour to fill and tie up all the tamales. When we were done, we stuck them all in a pot and carried them outside to be cooked on the fire.

 Choyo was in charge of keeping the fire burning...

...This is him pouring on the gasoline...yikes!

Rocio fanned the flames and got everything to smoking....I was out there maybe two minutes, but I smelled campfire on myself for the rest of the day....

 After we got done, Rocio's husband went and picked a bunch of these little fruits off their tree for us to eat. They call these "capulines". They look like cherries, but taste similar to a plum.

Here are a few pictures of the finished product....

The tamales were delicious! I've said it before, but to me, Rocio is the best cook in our church! 

 

 Nicole gave away a bunch of cupcakes after church. Everyone loooooved them!

 Since we've been doing talento after Sunday's service we've had some really fun times of fellowship as a church. We all hang out and talk and laugh. A couple of ladies hand out food, Mom usually is the "cajera" (cashier)...we all work together and it's been really good! I am thankful to have good cooks in our church ;)

~Bethany~