Crock-pot Red Pork Tamale Filling

Crock-pot Red Pork Tamale Filling Red pork filling 3½ lbs boneless pork shoulder or Boston butt cut into 3-inch chunks and trimmed 2 medium onion roughly chopped 9 cloves garlic lightly smashed and peeled 4 dried bay leaves toasted 3 sprigs fresh thyme 1/2 Tbsp Oregano 20-25 various types of dried red chiles guajillo,New Mexico Big Jim and/or Ancho - they all work well 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt 1 tsp Black peppercorns Tamale dough - you''ll probably need a few batches 2 C maseca 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/4 C chicken broth 2/3 C lard Dried Corn husks Red Pork Filling First de-stem and de-seed your chilies Soak the red chilies in hot water until they are soft. Weight them down, to keep them soaking Toast your bay leaves however you like. I cooked them in a dry skillet over low heat on the stove. Your chilies should be nice and soft now, put them in a blender or food processor, but retain the chile water (use gloves or tongs) Add the garlic, onion, thyme, marjoram, oregano, salt and pepper with the chilies to the blender and blend until smooth. If it's too thick or not blending well add some of your chile water to the blender. I used about half a cup In a large enough bowl so the meat can be covered (or in a large gallon size zip-lock freezer bag, like me), add the cubed pork, bay leaves and smother with the chile mix so that it can marinate for a minimum of 3 hours. After marinating for a sufficient amount of time, add the meat and the chile mixture to your slow cooker and cook on low overnight (or all day depending on what time your going to make your tamales, you want a good 8 hours). When it's done shred the pork and your ready to fill your tamales! Tamales soak the corn husks in water until soft whisk the Maseca, baking powder and salt together add the broth and combine in a separate bowl beat the lard until fluffy add add most of the beaten lard to the maseca mixture and combine with your hands - mix until the texture feels right - this might take a little playing - add more lard as needed keep a damp paper towel over the dough your not using to keep it from drying out roll a ball about 1 1/2 inches wide, flatten it (I use a tortilla press with a plastic bag) - if the texture is right the flattened circle won't break or crack, if it does add more whipped lard dry a corn husk, and place the flattened circle in the corn husk fill with a few Tablespoons of filling and fold one side, then the other over the filling, then fold up the bottom and press closed. I recommend using the corn husk vs your hands - try not to touch the filling. wrap the corn husk around and fold up the bottom and use the husk to fold and press the top dough down, seal. Steaming stack the wrapped tamales chimney style in a large steamer add a damp towel over the top and steam for 1 hour - text to see if they are done - they might need to steam for an extra 30 mins. Serve with Beans! you can freeze extras before or after steaming