Chanchamitos Tabasqueños

A couple of years ago, our friend who looks after a local Hispanic community at her church asked us if we would like some homemade Chan Chany’s (short a) which she described as being similar to a tamale.  Even though I never order tamales in a Mexican restaurant, I ordered a dozen and when they came they were round verses the traditional flatter shape and they had an orange cast to them.

When she asked us this latest time, I decided to do a little research on them and thinking they might be a tamale from a different Central American country, I asked where the cook was from and was told me the Mexican state of Tabasco.  When I did a search on tamales from Tabasco, there they were and called Chanchamitos which didn’t square with Chan Chany’s.  After a little reading, I discovered that Chanchamitos came from Mayan for chan-chan and since Tabasco is in the area occupied by the Mayan’s, use of the old word made perfect sense.  So Chanchamitos Tabasqueños means Tamales from Tabasco.

So my next question was “why are they orange” so I found several recipes and as it turns out they contain annatto powder which are the seeds of the achiote tree and it is used as a food coloring.

The recipe below is a basic one for the Chanchamitos fromMexican Recipes.me but for a more elaborate and detailed recipe with lots of pics check out My SliceOf Mexico.  

Chanchamitos

Ingredients for 6-10 people:

The stuffing:

* 3 lb. pork shoulder meat

* 1 lb. pork chops

* 5 red tomatoes,

* 1 onion

* 3 cloves of garlic

* 1 teaspoon cumin

* 1 sprig of epazote

* 1 red hot pepper

* Salt

The masa for tamales:

* 2 and 1/2 lb. corn dough for tamales,

* 1 lb. butter,

* 2 tablespoons achiote paste,

* Broth from cooking the Pork

* Corn husks,

* butter and salt

Preparation:

1) Slice the hot pepper, discard its seeds. Cook the pork shoulder meat in salted water and when ready take 1 cup of the resulting pork broth.

2) Separately, fry the pork chops in a skillet, and when about half cooked put the hot peppers in. Take out the pork chop and in the same skillet fry the chopped onion and tomato, cumin and garlic, and lastly add epazote leaves, season and reserve.

3) Dissolve the achiote in the cup of pork broth which we had saved from step 1. Add the pork chop meat and fried corn dough and add too slowly, the achiote dissolved in the broth, stirring well until all very well combined and the masa for tamales has taken the red color of the achiote.

4) We will steam the Chanchames in the usual way for tamales, cooking them all arranged standing up in the steamer for about one hour until the leaves come off the masa easily.

Serve these tamales with the salsa of your choice...

While I’ve never been a big tamale fan I really like these and I’m confident you will as well.  While they are good with just a little salsa of choice (ours come with a spicy salsa verde), my favorite way to eat them is as follows for cold ones.

With the husk on, nuke for a minute and a half.

Remove the husk, open them up and spread out a little.

Add some salsa and perhaps shredded cheese and nuke for another minute.

I forgot the pic.

Meanwhile, fry or poach an egg to the runny yoke point, add it atop the chan-chany and spread the yoke all over it.

The Verdict:

It was another delicious breakfast but, if I did the math right, the meal was 100 calories above my 350 calorie breakfast max and not keto-friendly so the rest of the days meals required adjusting and this meal can only be eaten sparingly.  

Chef Lea Ann - making these might be right in your wheelhouse.  So why don't I make them you ask - my source only charges $2.25 each and I feel so guilty, I always give her extra.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

03/06/22 event date