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Dishes wrapped in leaves or corn husks (like tamales or dolmas) have a millennia-long history in both the New World and the Old. Oaxaca and Michoacán have the highest diversity of tamales, but across Mexico, there are around 370 varieties of tamale.
Stuffed vegetables, too, have a long historical record in Mediterranean culinary history. But stuffed chiles weren’t very common in Mexico until relatively recently — chiles rellenos and chiles en nogadas didn’t appear to have existed in Mexico until the 18th century. (Ironically, chile en nogada is traditionally served to represent the Mexican flag to celebrate Mexican independence from Spain, but wouldn’t exist if Spaniards hadn’t brought picadillo, walnuts and pomegranates to the New World.)
With so many types of tamales and chiles, and such a long history of eating both, it strikes me as odd that there isn’t a long list of tamal-stuffed peppers. I wanted to find out why, but that’s for another day, I suppose. This time, I thought I’d just see what happens when I stuffed sweet peppers with tamalito — a simple tamale of pureed fresh sweet corn.
Tamalito is a Mayan dish made of sweet corn, popularized in the U.S. by Tex-Mex chain restaurant Chevys Fresh Mex (which formerly operated four Oregon locations). Don’t expect to see reverence for Mesoamerican culinary heritage here; it’s the kind of place cacophonous with the sizzling din of fajitas, where margaritas come in fishbowls and where flautas might be called “Southwest egg rolls.” Like other fusion cuisines, Tex-Mex is sometimes denigrated as little more than the acculturation of Mexican food, but couldn’t it be conversely seen as the Mexicanization of colonizer food?
I read that in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala, there exists such magic as tamales de anís (anise tamales), which inspired me to pair this mildly sweet relleno with hoja santa. It’s one of my favorite herbs to grow: If given a warm spot and plenty of water, the (true) pepper relative grows as luxuriantly as a tropical houseplant and smells like spicy root beer when rubbed between the fingers.
Incidentally, safrole, the compound responsible for that sassafras/root beer flavor, is used in the manufacture of MDMA and can cause liver cancer if consumed in high quantities — but like tonka bean and fiddlehead ferns, some ingredients are special enough to be worth a little do-si-do with danger. Serves 4
Ingredients
Filling:
2 cups fresh or frozen/thawed corn kernels, divided
½ cup water
½ cup cornmeal (fine or medium-coarse)
¼ cup masa harina
¼ cup sugar
6 tablespoons softened butter
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon salt
Peppers
4 large elongated, sweet red chiles such as Italian, Jimmy Nardello or ripe Hatch
Queso Oaxaca (optional)
1 hoja santa leaf, finely sliced into chiffonade (or cilantro)
Pickled red onions
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Puree half of the corn kernels with the water and cornmeal into a smooth slurry.
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix the sugar, butter, masa harina, milk and salt until thoroughly combined, then stir in the corn slurry and remaining corn kernels. Transfer the mix to a piping bag (or a plastic bag with a corner cut off).
- Halve the peppers lengthwise and remove the seeds (leave the stems in place) and arrange on a rimmed baking sheet. Pipe the corn mixture into the halved peppers.
- Add a couple tablespoons of water to the baking dish and cover tightly with foil. Bake until the tamalito has set up, about 45-50 minutes.
- If you’re adding cheese, remove the foil and drape strings of queso Oaxaca across the top of the peppers and broil under high heat until melted and bubbly, about 3 minutes.
- Top the stuffed peppers with hoja santa and serve with pickled red onions.