Tamale Pie

[IRC]

Anybody ever hear of this?

My paternal grandmother used to make this from canned tamales, (!?!?!), Wolf Brand Chili, grated cheese and onions.

She'd layer the canned tamales (!?!?!?!), chili, cheese and onions in a casserole and bake.

I remember loving it, but I also remember being about four.

I'm pretty sure I could make a reasonable dish using the same theory but better ingredients.

On the other hand, maybe canned tamales (!?!?!?!) are a required contribution to this mess.

I don't even know if you can still buy canned tamales (!!?!?!?).

Again I ask, has anyone ever heard of such a thing?

 

[threesheets]

Sounds pretty good, but I'm not eating canned tamales. Go buy some Pedro's and try it that way.

 

[hornian]

I have had tamale pie before. Don't know if they were "canned" tamales, but the dish was awesome. It's like a frito pie, only with tamales instead of fritos - what's not to love?

 

[NickDanger]

Huh. I've never even heard of canned tamales. You learn something new every day. Do they have husks?

 

[BrûléeOrange]

I haven't been able to find Wolf Brand canned Tamales in years. I consider canned tamales a completely different food compared to real ones. I still get a craving for them every now and then, but it's Wolf Brand or nothing. Yes, they have husks.

Oh, and you probably don't want to waste real tamales in a pie, that's what canned ones are for. Loved tamale pie and frito chili pies on Friday night football nights in small town Texas. Even better if it's cold and rainy weather.

 

[pulque]

I know exactly what you speak of and ate the same as a kid..I'd eat it again. And, it would probably taste great in a sailboat at least 100 miles offshore, where we live on canned food. Frito pie is great on the ocean as well. But it might be like spam (not as bad of course, but but as an analogy), as a kid, soon after WWII, my mom fed us spam, but as I found out years later, experimenting with a case of extreme munchies, (understatement) spam sucked...

 

[DRAG69]

I would suggest chopped tamales in your frito pie.

Now that sounds great.

Oh they are also really good chopped up in your favorite queso recipe.

 

[S197HQQKEM]

Yes you can get canned tamales, Bryan & Hormel make them. They don't have real shucks but some kind of fake paper ones. Theyre the only kind of tamales we had at home when I was growing up. Only had real ones when we came to Austin for football games and we woudl go to El Mat for dinner. Finally got to eat real ones when I came to school.

 

[MaxHorn]

We used to eat this all the time when I was a kid-- I think McCormick made the mix. It was basically a corn meal crust with seasoned ground beef and it even came with a little can of corn kernels to add. It was damn tasty as I recall-- one of those meals I always looked forward to...

 

[huge]

christmas eve last year we had berryhill tamales covered with james coney island chili, shredded cheese, onions, and japs.

it was ridiculously good.

 

[S197HQQKEM]

Well this thread got me to craving so I went and got a can of Bryan tamales and lo and behold the afore mentioned recipe in the first post WAS PRINTED RIGHT ON THE CAN!

The Link

I got mine at Big Lots just like the dude in the linked article. I just nuked mine, them tamales are high fiber if you eat them Gerald Ford style.

 

[DoobieWah]

I set out on a quest.

Four simple ingredients:

Ready to bake, (350 for 45 minutes):

A little soupier than expected, but all in all quite edible: