I am not a terribly skilled cook, but I am the kind of cook who likes disregarding recipes. Hmm. Maybe that's actually a causal relationship there. In any case, this is one of a very few dishes that I can whip up, fairly reliably, in a completely improvisational fashion. I've made tamale pies with sweet potatoes, with corn, with kale, with spinach, with fauxrizo, with white beans, etc. etc. Most all the combinations were great. Not because of my skill... just because the basic idea of this dish is so comfort-food-splendid that it's really hard to screw up.
This time, I opened the fridge and found that I had on hand some home-cooked pinto beans (I always thought of pintos as the most boring of beans... but recently I've totally changed my mind. They can be amazing!), some slightly aged pasilla chilis, a tiny amount of cheese, some tomato pulp left over from canning marinara sauce (basically I saved what got left over from using a food mill- skins and seeds), and a quarter-onion..
I cut up the pasillas and stuck them on foil and broiled them until they were soft and a little burny. Usually I then run them under cold water to remove the skins but this time I was too lazy. I didn't die of chili-skin poisoning, but there were a couple bites of pie that felt pretty stringy. Oh well.
While they were getting toasty, I put a large saute pan on with some canola oil and the onion. Then I took 2 cups of masa harina (I really prefer Bob's Red Mill, but any kind works), a sizeable pinch of salt, and a cup and a quarter of warm water, and mixed them in a bowl. Somewhat awkwardly I managed to work in about 2 Tbsp of butter, much as one might with a flour pie, only, well, in masa. And warm. I always try to stir this in a dignified fashion but give up and just knead with my hands until I have a nice firm well-mixed ball. I slap this into the center of a buttered pie-pan and start play-dohing it until it looks like a pie crust, basically pushing the center out radially with thumbs and fingers.
This is also a good time to start drinking beer.
You can do this without the butter, but it will be thinner and harder, more like a tortilla and less luscious. Mark Bittman recommends partially frozen olive oil, but I don't really know. Butter is an unalloyed good in my book.
In the meantime, I took the peppers out, turned the oven to 375 degrees, chopped up the peppers the rest of the way (it woulda been easier to do that first), then added in the cooked beans and tomatoes. And a couple cloves of garlic, and a bit of salt. Suddenly things are getting exciting.
Once this is nice and cooked up and most the moisture is cooked off, then it can be transferred, steaming, into the piecrust!
I found a nice-looking red bellpepper and decided to cut it up and put it on top. Sometimes I've done tamale pies with masa tops (usually too dry), sometimes with onion-and-cheese tops. This version worked pretty well. Baked at 375 for about 40 minutes or so (the last 10 or so, with a bit of grated cheese on top), it came out looking pretty exciting:
And, in fact, it tasted pretty good too: hearty, spicy, cheesy, and all that good comfort-food stuff.
Now, what kind of sweet pie should I make? While I think it over, here's a close-up of dinner:
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