Tamale Folly

Now this is a food blogger's disaster: my camera battery is dead. A recharge takes three hours. And I'm hungry. And the ground turkey is frozen. And the light is fading fast. Yep, that's how preparing this dish went. I crossed my fingers and forged on.

Desiree Witkowski, author of The Passionate Palate cookbook, calls Tamale Pie her "favorite winter casserole," and admonishes the reader to "make two and freeze one." Given than one feeds eight people, I just planned to make one. And prayed that I could eat the majority of it and not get bored.

The frozen ground turkey went into the microwave while I started the cornmeal. You remember that little adventure I had with polenta not long ago? I was hoping that the cornmeal crust for the Tamale Pie went a lot better.

I heated up water, added the cornmeal and salt, and stirred with a whisk. It appeared to thicken quickly, but --despite the book's advise-- I kept it on the burner for more than 5 minutes. Eventually it looked "done" so I flopped it out into a huge (for me) casserole dish. I more or less patted it up the sides and around the bottom of the pan to form a crust. Because it was still hot, it kept slipping and sliding down into the center of the pan. I let it sit, hoping it would firm up as I prepared the rest of the casserole.

Into a pan went some oil, a  chopped onion and some garlic. They were sauteed until opaque and then (now unfrozen) ground turkey was added.

I browned the turkey and added a whole slew of other stuff: flour, salt, chili powder, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped mushrooms, and chopped olives. The final ingredient was --get this-- raisins.

The very red conglomeration was mixed thoroughly and dumped into the now firm cornmeal crust. I kind of smoothed it out and threw the whole thing into a 325 oven for around 40 minutes. It looked...interesting. The same way exploded lasagna might be interesting.

I pulled it out of the oven and spooned some into a Fiestaware bowl. The cornmeal crust along the sides of the pan was hardened, but inside and under the filling, was more like cornmeal mush. In a good way - kind of creamy. The filling was delicious. Just enough heat (from the chili powder) and a tickle of sweetness from the unexpected addition of raisins.

It looks good the day after a night in the fridge.

This really is a good winter casserole recipe. It was pretty easy to throw together, and would feed a crowd of hungry people. Like so many casseroles, it's not particularly beautiful, but with the addition of some shredded cheese, becomes a nurturing meal. Or several meals in my case.