TCC, Day 34: All of the Mexican Food

Even when I barely leave the house during the week, Saturdays are still awesome.

I finished watching my Mexican cooking class, and I planned an entire homemade Mexican food meal for tonight so I could graduate myself.

I made refried black beans, pescado a la talla (red and green roasted fish) fresh tortillas, and strawberry tamales for dessert.

Here's the low down:

The fish was fishy. The recipe called for a butterflied snapper, but HEB didn't have that so I used cod. I have absolutely no idea if those two fish can be swapped out or not, but I did it. I made both the adobo rojo de chile sauce (the red one) and the green sauce from scratch. Trey preferred red. I preferred green.

I'm getting good at tortillas. Today's were the best so far. Yum!

The refried beans were delicious. So very good. I cooked the dried black beans in my InstantPot and then "refried" them. Yum!

Tamales.  I've always wanted to try to make tamales. The last session of my class was on guava tamales, so I was excited to give them a shot. However, I've never tried guava so I was reluctant to put so much work into something I may not like.

When we were in Cabo one summer we tried strawberry tamales, so I decided to swap out the guava with strawberries and give it a shot. The only other thing I did differently from the recipe is that I didn't add star anise to the masa. I think we've already established how I feel about licorice flavor. I should have left out the cinnamon stick because cinnamon and strawberries are not usually together, but it still tasted pretty good.

The corn husks I brought were sort of cumbersome. I'm not sure if that's always the case or not because my tamale-making experience is limited to the last six hours. Some of them were split and some were small. My skill in assembling the tamales needs some work. I steamed them in my Instantpot.

They aren't beautiful, but they taste good. We tested one to be sure. If you're a tamale pro, please feel free to leave me your tips and tricks. I'm going to have one of these later with macerated strawberries and whipped cream on top, so I'll be sure and share a pic of that so you can be jealous.

My friend Gabby (a.k.a. Gabriela Camera, the Master Class teacher) uses butter instead of lard in her dessert tamales, and she is a genius. You can taste the butter, and that can't be bad, right?

As a grand finale to the class, today I received an early birthday present from my friends - a tortilla press and Gabriela Camera's cookbook! It's a beautiful book, and I can't seem to put it down!

I've now started the French pastry class. I began a croissant starter last night, but it will be a week or so before I know if that works out like it should. You know I'll keep you all posted.

Even in quarantine, Saturdays are still awesome.

The end.