The text came the Sunday after Thanksgiving: tamale orders were open, same price as last year, pickup the Sunday before Christmas. I wrote back within two minutes. Four dozen, please. Two dozen pork, one dozen chicken with green chile, one dozen bean and cheese.
We've ordered from the same family at church for four Christmases now. They make tamales by the hundreds of dozens every December, with a grandmother in charge and three generations working the assembly line, and they sell them to anyone at church who asks. They're $18 a dozen. Our order comes to $72, and it's the easiest Christmas Eve dinner I know.
Why we buy instead of make
I've made tamales exactly once. In 2016 my mom and I had a tamalada at her house in Denton: two days of work counting the pork, six dozen tamales, masa on every surface and a backache that lasted until New Year's. The ingredients for those six dozen came to about $30, roughly 42 cents a tamale. These cost $1.50 each. On paper, making them saves money.
In real life, a tamalada with a seven-year-old, a ten-year-old and a two-year-old underfoot the week before Christmas is not going to happen, and their tamales are better than mine were. I'd rather pay a family who does this beautifully and spend my December Saturdays on cookie plates. That's a trade I make on purpose.
How our Christmas Eve works
Christmas Eve is at our house, just the five of us plus my mom and stepdad, Carol and Gary, who drive down from Denton in the afternoon. On Christmas Day we leave for Matt's parents' house in Tyler, so the 24th is the one holiday meal this month I cook in my own kitchen, and I like to keep it quiet.
The tamales get steamed in the big stockpot with a steamer basket set inside. Stand them upright, open end up, packed together so they don't flop over, with an inch or two of water below the basket. Lid on, medium heat, about 25 minutes if they've been in the fridge and closer to an hour from frozen. Top off the water halfway through if it's getting low, because a dry pot scorches. The masa is done when a tamale pulls cleanly away from its husk.
Every year someone new to tamales tries to eat the husk. Two Christmases ago it was Eli, who was five and very committed. Now we announce the rule before anyone sits down: unwrap first.
The chili we serve with them
Tamales with chili spooned over the top is a Texas thing, and for this I make a smoother, beanless chili than our Halloween pot, closer to a chili gravy.
- 1 1/2 pounds 80/20 ground beef
- 1 onion, finely diced, and 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons chili powder, 2 teaspoons cumin, 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce
- 2 1/2 cups water or beef stock
- 3 tablespoons masa harina whisked into 1/2 cup water
Brown the beef and break it up small with a potato masher, cook the onion until soft, then add the garlic and spices for a minute. Add the tomato sauce and water, simmer uncovered for about an hour on low, and stir in the masa for the last ten minutes. It should coat a spoon and pour like gravy. Ladle it over unwrapped tamales and finish with shredded cheddar and diced white onion. Rosie prefers the bean and cheese tamales plain, in pieces, with her own pile of cheese.
With the cheese and onion, the chili comes to about $14. The rest of Christmas Eve dinner is that pot, about two dozen tamales, a bag salad and whatever Carol brings, which is usually a fruit salad with mini marshmallows that the kids treat as dessert.
What happens to the other two dozen
Seven of us eat about two dozen tamales. The rest go in the freezer and become January's easy dinners, when I'm trying to eat down the chest freezer instead of buying more. This year they'll get vacuum sealed in packs of six instead of tossed into a zip bag, which should keep the edges from drying out the way they did last year.
Receipt check: $72 for four dozen tamales and about $14 for the chili, $86 for Christmas Eve dinner plus two January suppers already in the bank.
