Deep-Dish Tamale Pie

I'm shamelessly stealing elements of this recipe from America's Test Kitchen, who did a version of tamale pie a while back that looked delicious but was, let's face it, too small. But they took garden-variety tamale pie, which is a bunch of cans dumped into a casserole and baked, and elevated it. I'm going to take it back down a few notches because let's face it, tamale pie doesn't need to be elevated that much. It's hearty and delicious, but there's no reason we have to content ourselves with garden-variety.

You Will Need:

• Beef?
• Beans
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Cilantro?
  
• Spices
• Oil
• Cheese
  
• Cornbread

Beef?

You can make this vegetarian and it won't lose much. Much. But it's better with beef. You could also make it with ground chicken or turkey, but you may need more oil to bloom the spices and keep things from drying out.

I used pre-portioned frozen hamburger, 80-20, because I had that available. Frozen absolutely works, and don't let anyone tell you different. American's Test Kitchen says use lean beef, and they're wrong; use something with some fat to it so the spices have some fat to bloom in, and to keep everything from drying out. You might think it'll wind up greasy. Maybe if you used 75-25 it might, but there's some fat in this.

If you're avoiding all that extra fat, my recommendation is still to use fattier ground beef and drain the excess fat out before you add other things. But if you must, use lean meat, cook it high and fast until it browns and then immediately take it out of the pan and add it back in at the end, so you don't overcook it.

Beans

Black beans or pinto beans are best here. You could use kidney beans (I would go for light rather than dark red because they're less tough) but if you're making it vegetarian I wouldn't. You need a softer bean to give body to everything. Two cans, rinsed and drained. If you can, get a better class of canned bean because they're not going to cook very much, so if you find that cheaper beans still taste like the can even after cooking them (they tend to) or are still kind of hard even after cooking in liquid for a while, maybe don't use those beans for this.

You can also use dry beans you've prepared. It's a great opportunity to get some flavor into them, so cook them with garlic, chiles, cumin, whatever you think will add flavor to them. You'll still want to rinse and drain them though because the tamale pie can't take any additional liquid.

If you want to go vegetarian, you probably want to add at least one more can of beans, maybe 2, to compensate for the lack of meat. If you've got any MSG or umami-rich things you like to use like nutritional yeast or mushroom seasoning, add a little of that, just to give some depth. You could even use mushrooms, or textured soy protein, as a substitute for the beef.

Tomatoes

You can use fresh, but you'll be so much happier if you use canned, and it's traditional. No, we're not just opening cans and dumping, but in this case we can open a can of diced tomatoes and dump them in.

You may be tempted to use salsa here. That might work, but make sure it's a very thick salsa. A better option is diced tomatoes with green chiles, which many supermarkets carry. If you like Rotel tomatoes, use those, but Rotel are stewed, so they add additional salt, sugar, and other flavors, plus they'll taste more cooked at the end. I like the freshness that regular canned tomatoes give, but use what you prefer.

Onions

One pound, diced. Yes, you can use fresh onions, but again, I'm going to recommend that, if you can, you pick up a pound bag of frozen diced onions, which cost about the same amount when you factor in waste and save so much time. Plus, we're bringing the convenience here. They also break down more.

Cilantro

If you're one of the unfortunates who can't eat cilantro, leave it out. If you don't love cilantro, America's Test Kitchen recommended two tablespoons chopped. I recommend a good half cup chopped, but I love cilantro. Again, it adds a freshness that traditional tamale pie tends to lack. Add as much or as little as you like. This is probably not the time to use dried cilantro; it's just not the same.

Spices

Chili Powder is the most commonly-used spice in this recipe. It's a mix of a bunch of spices with chiles and salt usually being present, garlic and cumin often, sometimes others. Not to be confused with ground dried chiles. America's Test Kitchen called for two tablespoons. They are mistaken because they're white and from Boston. If you only use chili powder, use as much as you want. The only thing which keeps me from recommending that you add a cup of it is that it would make everything too salty.

To combat that, supplement your chili powder or make your own. You'll want garlic powder (or fresh/paste/jarred is fine too, but garlic powder has a punch which replicates the taste of chili powder), dried chiles (I used some dried chipotle because I like the smokiness, but you can use anything from paprika to cayenne, or a mix), cumin, and maybe even a little ground coriander (maybe more than a little if you can't add the cilantro). I added a few tablespoons of chili powder, then a tablespoon more of each of those except the coriander which I added a generous pinch of. But again, if you like cumin and garlic, add a bunch of them. Any mix of these spices will taste good in the end.

Oil

If you're going vegetarian or light on the fat, you might need a little to bloom your spices. If not, the beef fat should be more than enough.

Cheese

At least 2 cups. I went for more like 4. You want it to be cheesy but not half cheese. The pre-shredded stuff, despite everyone's protestations to the contrary, is often cheaper and definitely fine here. Use a melting cheese like Jack or Colby, or Mexican cheese if you can find it, rather than sharp cheddar because the latter tends to break and then you really will wind up with a puddle of grease at the bottom of the pot.

Cornbread

Okay, you can make your own. Make a recipe which will give you a healthy amount, enough to make an 8 x 8 pan full. Or... use Jiffy. Jiffy is great. Use two boxes, which will require two eggs and 2/3 cup of milk (check the packaging but that's what it called for when I made it).

I want to state, for the record, that I'm entirely in favor of making your own cornbread if you're looking to make cornbread. Jiffy, by itself, is a little dry and lacks a really intense cornbread flavor if you're looking for that, plus it won't give you the delicious crispness in the edges of a really good cast iron skillet cornbread, for example. But this is tamale pie. The steam from the filling will keep the top layer of cornbread nice and moist, and Jiffy is just so simple and so cheap.

You Will Also Need:

A Frying Pan

Any sort will do. Nonstick totally works, but unless you're trying to go non-fat in a stainless steel skillet, there should be enough fat in the beef to keep it from sticking. It'll be fine.

A Deep-Dish Casserole

Something oven-safe and deep enough to hold the quantity of tamale pie this recipe makes. You could also use a shallower pan if it's wider, but that kind of defeats the purpose and you may find it slightly drier. An oven-safe pot will work here too, and if you go that route, you might be able to make this a one-pot meal and sauté in the pot too.

Tamale pie doesn't expand that much, but you don't want to fill whatever you're baking it in to the rim just in case. The cornbread will roughly double as it bakes, so leave that much room and you'll be fine.

Tamale, and tamale, and tamale,
Cooks in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded pie.

I'm not sorry.

First thing you need to do is brown your beef (obviously, skip or transmogrify this step if you're not using beef). Get a decent heat under your pan, something which will put a little color on your beef, then brown, breaking it up with your utensil of choice until you've got sautéed ground beef. It should render its fat and stop being pink. Don't cook the heck out of it; there's still steps to go and it'll get finished. Keep it moist. That's the ticket.

If you're like me and you forget to do things, or you have animals around who like to try to eat beans you've drained and rinsed, now's a fine time to drain and rinse your beans. I swear, you wouldn't think cats would like beans, but I'm here to tell you that they do. You can handle the beans while the beef cooks. Or do it before like a good person. No judgments. I'm not glaring at you at all.

Add your spices and stir to keep them from burning. In fact, maybe turn down the heat a little to make sure. If you used frozen beef, you may have a little liquid in the pan; that'll help too. If you're really worried, or if there isn't that much fat, you can always add a teaspoon or 2 of water. Get the beef coated in those spices.

Once your spices have bloomed and you're starting to smell them (roughly a minute; keep an eye on them because burnt spices can't be come back from easily) add your onion. Sauté the onion in the fat. You should be wondering to yourself, "You know, if I just put this in tacos or something, I wouldn't even have to worry about making tamale pie..." because it'll look and smell that good. Resist the urge. It gets better.

When the onions have released their liquid and are looking spice-coated and translucent, dump in your can of tomatoes (or your fresh ones, you overachiever you). Now you've got a little breathing room. Stir that all together and let it perk over medium heat. You're just keeping it in a holding pattern, really, but it'll help bring the juices of the tomatoes together with everything else, the spices will hydrate and start making you think that maybe you could serve this as chili and forget about tamale pie (that voice is the enemy), and you'll have a moment to prepare your cornbread batter. You can also drain and rinse your beans now if you, like me, like to live dangerously.

If you find that your pan will not hold any more stuff, that's okay. The beans don't need to be cooked at all. They'll bake with everything else.

Make your cornbread batter and then let it rest for five minutes like it says on the package. Then chop that cilantro. Chop it nice and fine. Or be rustic. Whatever. Just get it in there. Add the cilantro to the perking pan and stir, then turn everything off.

Now, you don't really need to grease your casserole (and if you're one-potting it, you won't be able to) but there's no harm in doing it if you can. Cooking spray is cheap, or use a butter wrapper, or whatever. Just make sure things won't stick. Then put your beans, your cheese, and your meat and vegetable mixture into the final pot and stir to combine. It'll look and smell like chili, only way better than the stuff from the can that most tamale pies use. This is not most tamale pies.

You may be asking yourself, "Self, why is there no creamed corn in this tamale pie?" Well, you are free to add corn, but you don't need to do so. It's a balance thing, and I like the balance better without it. Try it once for me and if you still feel like it needs corn or creaminess, maybe try adding some sweet corn and a little more cheese rather than a can of creamed corn. But you do you.

Even out the top of the fillings and dollop your cornbread batter over the top. There should be enough cornbread to cover easily. If there isn't, lie and tell everyone you meant it that way and that it's really more like a chili with cornbread dumplings than a tamale pie. No one will know. You didn't tell them you were making tamale pie, did you? Oh dear. Well, you have my permission to say that it's more traditional this way and that they've just never had it the traditional way.

But if you use two boxes of Jiffy, you should have enough to cover. Use Jiffy, seriously. At least the first time you make it.

Preheat your oven to 400 (or whatever it says on the package; you may live in a metric location and I'm not guesstimating on this) and then put your pie in the oven for the length directed on the package (which was 15-20 minutes when I did it). Keep an eye on it, but it should be fine.

Now, you may find that the top browns wonderfully but the inside is still not solid. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing. It's good if that's what you're looking for (see, I told you you didn't need to add creamed corn) and you'd like a slightly more tamale experience, but if you're worried about undercooked eggs, turn the oven down to 300 and let the middle finish cooking. It'll still be very moist because you put it over filling that was moist, so the inside of the cornbread will be more steamed than baked, but that's like a tamale. They're steamed. Find someplace that makes them and give the legitimate article a try if you've never had one before. Delightful.

Take your pie out when it's done to your level of preference and then wait for the longest 10 minutes of your life. Smell that filling. It's so fresh and cilantro-y. Unless you didn't use cilantro. In which case it smells great too, just more like chili maybe? I don't know, I'm not there.

Then serve it. It's not going to come out like lasagna or a pot pie. It really is more like a very cheesy chili with a layer of cornbread on top, so don't worry about making neat slices.

If you're a normal human being with normal wants and needs, this should serve 4 hungry people, or more if you have some sides, maybe a salad or... who am I kidding, it's tamale pie, you're not eating salad with it. It makes a nice chunk of pie, is what I'm saying.You'll enjoy yourself and be able to have seconds if you want.

And that's about all there is to it.

Variations

For a complete change of mood, why not try chilaquile pie instead? Substitute chicken for the beef (or keep it beef, or ground pork; this isn't exactly traditional) and peppers for the tomatoes (you can totally use frozen, or a rustic dice of two or three fresh) and cut back on the chili powder in exchange for more garlic, cumin, and cilantro. Lots of cheese. You can keep the cornbread, or for a slightly more authentic twist buy a bag of tortilla chips, and layer some filling, some chips, some cheese, until you run out of filling (you may not use all the chips; it's okay, someone will eat them). Then cover the top with cheese and bake until golden brown. If you go with the chips, remember that they've got salt, so use less salt in the filing.

Or for another variation, what about chile relleno pie? Substitute peppers for the tomatoes, lots of peppers, and add a can of enchilada sauce in whatever flavor you like. Top with cornbread.

Of course you can make the mother of all pies, with all of these things thrown together into an unholy mixture, three different meats, three kinds of beans, seven cheeses, all the veggies and sauces, and cornbread and corn chips, but I can't be held responsible for what will happen, nor do I want to tell you what to call it.

Whatever you do, remember that it's just tamale pie; no need to stress. You can do it. This is cookable.