Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Yes, banana leaves make amazing wrappers.

I never knew there was so much variety lol, I only knew about mexican tamales vs salvadoran tamales... I thought that was it.... there is apparently a lot that I have been missing out on.

The ones I've bought in the store near me are Salvadorean ones and they contain a lot of masa. I'm not sure if that is typical of Salvadorean ones though. They are delicious though :)

I prefer some kind of green salsa, but if I am at a restaurant I'll get green and red on them if they have it, since I'm not the one making the sauce. Also mole sauce may not be traditional on tamales, but its tasty. I've also had tamales with no sauce, but the filling was just hatch Chiles, roasted, so no sauce was really necessary. I wouldn't make a sauce just for tamales if I were you, since you can probably use whatever you have that you like already.

Also, banana leaves? How do you get them to stay closed to steam them?

I think they usually tie them up.

The insides of the tamales that my family makes always have chile sauce inside, not placed directly, but that is what the meat is soaked in. I never learned to make my grandmother's tamales because at first I was too little and then later I was too vegetarian :)

I miss the Trader Joe's tamales that were cactus and tomatillo tamales - those were good! They stopped making them a long time ago - did anyone ever have those?

No! I never had those.

I made tamales with my grandmother last year. She bought the masa for me from the local store. She was making meat tamales and I was next to her making vegetarian ones. She had this old hand written recipe that she told me to follow but then ever time I asked her about the ingredient amounts, she would say 'ignore that'. Not sure why she would have a recipe written down that she refers to but doesn't follow.

My family also puts the sauce inside :) But there always tends to be tons of sauce leftover, which may be partly the reason we always eat with sauce.

Yes, you tie up the banana leaves with strips of banana leaf! Alternatively, string.