Smoked Pork Tamales

How to make Smoked Pork Tamales Recipe - If there was a cooking marathon, tamales would win. Around Christmas my family takes a day or two off plus the weekend to start making tamales. They are not hard to make, but the volume of tamales made out of a pork butt is challenging. Either know a lot of people who will want tamales (which is usually the case) or make sure you have a lot of freezer space. My smoked pork tamales have really been a showstopper on my blog.

Serves: 40–50

Ingredients:
5 1/2-pound bone-in pork butt
Canola oil
1 cup beer
1 bag of guajillo chiles (yields 14 chiles per bag)
2 1/2 cups water
80 dried corn husks (soaked in water overnight)
5 pounds pre-made masa

Rub Ingredients:
2 tbsp Hungarian paprika
1 tsp ground green jalapeño pepper
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbsp dark roasted chili powder
1/2 tsp Worcestershire powder
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp Kosher salt

Pork Instructions:
Mix all rub ingredients in a bowl, reserving 1/2 cup for the chile sauce. Rinse pork in water and pat dry. Drizzle oil all over pork butt. Cover all sides of pork butt with rub.

Set up smoker to 375 to 400 degrees F. Place meat on the smoker. Add apple wood to the charcoal for flavor. After 2 hours, wrap pork in aluminum foil, pour beer inside, and place the meat back on the smoker. Let pork steam in aluminum foil for 2 hours or until bone pulls out cleanly.

Rest pork butt for 1 hour or until it is cool enough to handle. Pull the pork into finely shredded pieces.

Chile Sauce Instructions:
Roast the chiles on the grill. Do not burn them. Soak the chiles for 2 hours in a large container. Deseed all the chiles and place them in a blender, reserving soaking water.

Add reserved rub to the blender. Take 2 cups from the chile-soaking water to add to the blender, using a strainer to keep debris out. Blend until smooth.

Tamales Instructions:
Pour masa into a large mixing bowl. Add 2 cups of chile sauce to the masa and mix well. Pour just enough chile sauce onto the pork to coat it well. Mix well. (Save any extra chile sauce for making chili con carne.)

Take a corn husk and spread the masa on it with a spoon. Spread the masa all the way to the wide edge of the corn husk while leaving a finger length with no masa at the narrow end. The masa should be about the thickness of a tortilla.

Add a spoonful of pork to the center of each corn husk. Overlap one side of the corn husk to the other and tuck the narrow end to form a pocket.

Repeat the process until all of the ingredients are gone. Prepare the tamalera (tamale steam pot), by adding water to the bottom of the pot and bringing it to a boil.

Place all the tamales in the tamalera and steam for 1 hour or until the masa is no longer doughy. Let tamales cool down before handling.