Tamale Pie!

One of my favorite meals to cook. Savory tamale pie!

This is really my own recipe, more or less. And it's different each time I make it. This time the result actually was a bit of a disappointment, though it was tasty enough to be a great couple of meals. I'll note what I did and what I'd advise differently as I go.

First: the dough. Masa and salt and oil and water. Mostly masa and water. I prefer Bob's Red Mill Masa, or fresh masa if you can find it... but other brands of dried masa work fine.

I used two cups of dried masa, two teaspoons of salt, and about a cup and a third of water and a third of a cup of canola oil. In the past I've had better luck with less oil- in this case the oil made the crust crunchy instead of pleasantly chewy. And stock will give your dough a delicious flavor instead of water. 

Mix it up, form a ball out of a bit over half the mixture, and press that ball into a pie pan... then press out the dough until it's a pie-crust shape. (No point in rolling it, just shape it in the pan).

I then fill it with yummy pre-cooked stuff. In the past this has included roasted beets, roasted squash, roasted garlic; spinach, kale, chard. In this case the main filling was some home-cooked Anasazi beans (canned beans are fine, of course). 

Then, some avocado! Because few things are as delicious as avocado. (In hindsight, I should've served this as a topping/garnish, since the avocado disappears somewhat inside the pie).

 Then, some crumbled Soyrizo. Not for everyone: some might prefer Cho, some might prefer No rizo. But Fauxrizo is tasty.

And, I happened to have roasted up some pasilla peppers. Quickly chopped and added:

And, lastly, cheese. I added about a half-cup of sharp cheddar, and wished I'd added more.

 Now it was time to roll out the top crust. Often I don't do a top crust, but this time I wanted to be fancy. So I took the remainder of the dough, put it between saran wrap, and rolled. It's a bit crumbly. 

As you can see, I am a slovenly, sloppy, careless pie-maker.

 Once out of the oven, though, it looked pretty legit:

Here's what it looked like when served (ideally, there should have been a light, crisp salad or something... but I think we basically had tamale pie and beer).

That's all for now!