Cooking Cuban - Tamal en Cazuela (Cuban-style Tamal Casserole)

pork

🥗Healthier: chicken

💰Cheaper: ground turkey

Ground turkey is a leaner option and often less expensive.

cheese

🥗Healthier: nutritional yeast

💰Cheaper: cream cheese

Cream cheese is more affordable and adds creaminess.

Season chunks of pork shoulder with salt and pepper. Cook the pork in a deep pot. Once fully cooked, set it aside. Reserve some of the fat from cooking for later use.

Rinse the coarse yellow cornmeal before transferring it to the pot where you cooked the pork meat. Fill the pot with enough water to cover all the cornmeal. Add salt to taste.

Start cooking the tamal en cazuela on high heat. Once the water boils, turn the heat down to low. From this point on you will have to stir constantly. The rest of the dish must be cooked low and slow.

As the water starts drying out, add more water little by little. Continue stirring non-stop. You will need to keep adding water until the cornmeal has cooked through and is soft. The more water you add, the more salt you will need to add as well.

A 24-ounce package of cornmeal will take about 40 minutes to cook on low heat. Once the cornmeal reaches the consistency of grits and is cooked through, it has finished cooking. Remove it from heat and cover while you complete the next steps.

Use the reserved pork fat/oil to cook your sofrito. Heat the oil in a shallow pan. Once it's hot, add onions, green pepper, garlic and a jar of sofrito. Sauté until fragrant.

Add the pork you cooked earlier to the sofrito. Make sure you cover each piece in the seasoning.

Add the sofrito and the pork to the cornmeal. Combine well so that the ‘red’ of the sofrito dissolves completely in the cornmeal.

Serve and enjoy!

Cooking Techniques

Equipment Needed

Spice Level:

Dietary