Seafood Tamale

Ingredients:

1 lb dry white hominy
4 large banana leaves
1 lb mussels
8 jumbo shrimp
1/2 lb swordfish
2 rashers of bacon
1/2 cup olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
3-inch piece of fresh ginger root
2 small dried chiles
2 cups chopped onion
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp salt
5 Tbsp dry vermouth
16 bay scallops

Instructions:

Add to hominy 6 cups hot water and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, then set aside to soak for one hour.

To prepare the banana leaves for cooking, split the thickened central vein of each leaf at the base with a sharp knife or shears. Then grasping the split ends of the vein, rip the leaf into two long pieces. Cut these into lengths 15 inches long with the shears. You should have at least 16. Then pass the pieces through the flame of a burner on a gas stove or a barbecue grill to bring out the flavor and make the leaf pliable.

Steam mussels until shells just begin to open. Remove meat and discard shells. Peel,devein, and rinse shrimp. Chop the shrimp shells and cook them overa low heat for 10 to 15 minutes in a cup of water. Strain and set aside the resulting stock. Skin the swordfish and cut into 1-inch squares. Mince the bacon and cook it in the olive oil over medium heat until slightly golden. Then add peeled and minced garlic and ginger root, crumble in the chiles, and saute briefly before adding the onion, cumin, 1 Tbsp of salt, and the vermouth. Cook for 5 minutes or so, then add the shrimp stock and continue cooking until the water has boiled off. Then scrape contents of the pan into a Pyrex measuring cup. Let the oil rise, pour it off, and save it. Save also the sauce remaining in the bottom of the measuring cup.

In a food processor, grind the hominy to a coarse paste. Transfer it to a mixing bowl and knead in the remaining 1 tsp of salt and the oil you have flavored with bacon, garlic, etc.

Divide this dough into 16 equal portions. Flatten one portion onot the center of a prepared piece of banana leaf, making a broad bed a half inch thick or so, and arrange on top of it a shrimp, 2 scallops, a mussel or two (if they are small and you’ve got enough), and a square of swordfish. Dribble over this a tablespoon of the sauce from the measuring cup, then cover the whole with another flattened portion of the dough. Fold up the sides of the banana leaf, and lay another piece on top, folding the edges of this down and under. Then tie the package up with plain cotton string, and set it aside.

Make 7 more tamales in this fashion, then stack them on a rack in a large pot so that they rest over, not in, boiling water. Cook tightly covered for 20 to 30 minutes, replacing the water in the bottom of the pot as necessary. Serve in the wrappers.

Serves 8.

From The 20 Minute Vegetable Gardener by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher.