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Tamales 101: A Beginner's Guide to Making Traditional Tamales [A Cookbook]

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Alice Guadalupe Tapp, co-owner of Tamara's Tamales, reveals the art of tamale making and imparts her knowledge and passion for this comforting treat in Tamales 101 .

Tamales 101 will show beginners how to make masa dough as well as fold and steam tamales to perfection. Then, once you've mastered the basics, you'll be whipping up batches of Chicken Tomatillo, Chorizo Potato, Vegetable Curry, and Greek tamales in no time.

With recipes for nearly 100 traditional, vegetarian, vegan, and specialty tamales and sauces, and 60 food and spot photographs and 15 illustrations showing, step by step, how to spread masa and wrap and tie tamales, Tamales 101 will send you on a culinary adventure that's sure to delight and impress your guests.

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

33 people are currently reading
70 people want to read

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Alice Guadalupe Tapp

5 books3 followers

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5 stars
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51 (38%)
3 stars
17 (12%)
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for R.Joseph.
59 reviews4 followers
September 24, 2007
Great cookbook that actual has vegan tamales in it! The book also offers some very low fat/ healthy alternatives to making awesome tamales. The green chili and jack cheese tamale recipe fixed with olive oil turned out GREAT this weekend! If you love tamales, get this book!
1 review
August 31, 2023
A good book. I did learn the basics of making tamales. The book also gives ideas for variations.
Profile Image for Stephanie.
107 reviews1 follower
May 17, 2008
Yummy, delicious, scrumptious, informative, lip-smacking, helpful and did I say yummy and delicious yet?

I have been helping/making tamales for most of my life now and have tried several variations, but this book really taught me so much more and given me the inspiration to be more adventurous with my tamale making. I was even able to convince my husband to help tie/prepare the tamales for once because he was anxious to try new meat and desert version recipes for tamales and had good written instructions to understand what he needed to do (Lord forbid he follow his wife's instructions, right!).
52 reviews1 follower
March 5, 2009
I loved this cookbook! I had tried making tamales before, and they were dry and tasteless. I love Tapp's recipe for the masa (I just used the dry stuff I could find in the grocery store--no fresh masa for me), and two different stuffings. Highly recommend the black bean one; the jalapeno cheese was super too spicy for me without a carton of sour cream. Well worth the buy or the check-out from the library. Oh, but it did take about 11 hours to make them. I was tired.
Profile Image for Sue.
593 reviews1 follower
September 10, 2010
LOVE this book! If you love tamales you should have this book on your shelf. It has all kinds (meat, chicken, vegetarian and sweet). There are recipes for the sauces and the mole if you are industrious. There are tons of beautiful pictures and great intructions for the beginner as well as the seasoned tamale maker.
Profile Image for Pamela.
147 reviews46 followers
May 11, 2011
has VEGAN and VEGETARIAN masa and fillings recipes!!!!

This book also has a lot of info on wrapping the tamales with great instructions across the board.
I am also looking forward to trying the sweet tamales ESPECIALLY the tamale dulces and sweet apple tamales!
Profile Image for ❀Aimee❀ Just one more page....
444 reviews93 followers
September 1, 2014
I purchased this book years ago. It was the only book that made the art of tamales doable for the inexperienced AND had several vegetarian options. I'm thinking this may be the year -- a family activity for a unique Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Profile Image for Heidi.
12 reviews
December 24, 2007
If you love to cook Mexican food, you'll love this book. The woman owns Tamara's Tamales in Marina del Rey. I wish I still lived in LA so I could try the tamales.
Profile Image for Lisa Smith.
244 reviews8 followers
December 21, 2010
Black Bean and Corn, Veggie Special, Chile Cheese are all excellent. Make the masa in two batches though-- it's too much for a home mixer.
122 reviews1 follower
June 25, 2013
Great cookbook. Haven't made tamales at home yet. Mainly use the recipes as guides for preparing/combining meat, vegetables, and sauces. Hmmm, any of the 3 pestos sounds interesting.
119 reviews1 follower
December 27, 2013
Can't wait to give tamale making a try and use some of these recipes.
Profile Image for Naomi.
4,820 reviews142 followers
June 23, 2015
A must purchase for any tamale lover such as myself. I loved the vegetarian tamales, but there were plenty of meat based ones, as well. Not to mention dessert tamales. Say what?
Profile Image for Marcie.
31 reviews
December 4, 2016
Every tamale recipe in this book looks amazing - after checking it out from the library I had to go buy the book - we plan on trying every recipe!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews

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