One Chefs Spin on the Colombian TamalInspired by the Caribbean Coast – Saveur

The tamal has many different faces across Colombia, with distinct parts of the country incorporating particular starches, proteins, vegetables, and seasonings into their renditions of the leaf-wrapped dish. Chef Alejandra Cubillos Gonzlez, who was born and raised in Bogot, grew up eating tamal santafereo, a variety typical of the capital region that usually includes pork, chicken, peas, carrots, and cornmeal, all bound up tightly in wrapped banana leaves. Every year at Christmas and the New Year, her grandmother, who ran a restaurant and cooked all her life, would prepare the dish for the whole family, with relatives helping assemble and wrap each tamal.

After Gonzlez became a chef herself and began developing recipes for the menu at Baha Restaurant in Isla Bar, a former peninsula accessible from the port city of Cartagena, she wanted to represent her native countrys knack for cooking foods wrapped in natural fibers. She also wanted to highlight the local cuisine, which was so different from that of the capital, thanks to the coastal climate and Caribbean influencesnamely, the bounty of fresh fish.

It was in Cartagena that Gonzlez first began to cook fish regularly, especially locally abundant varieties such as horse mackerel and various snappers she had rarely encountered before. Being close to the sea, I can be more connected with local fishermen, learn from them, and discover other types of food, she says. They advised me in the best method of cooking for each varietyfried, roasted, or with some sauce.

To encapsulate some of her new home citys quintessential foodways in a single dish, Gonzlez decided that a tamal-inspired parcel might be a great vehicle for allowing a delicate cut of local corvina to shine. Further drawing on the coastal regions specialties, she dreamed up a tomato-and-coconut-milk-based saucesomewhat reminiscent of cazuela de mariscos, or seafood stew, one of Cartagenas representative dishesto pour over the fish. A common ingredient in Colombias coastal regions because of how plentiful it is, coconut gives us flavor, moisture, and natural fat that lends texture and aroma, Gonzlez explains, while also balancing out the acidity of the tomatoes.

She wraps the fish and sauce in plantain leaves to protect the ingredients we have chosen, noting that the natural fibers concentrate the flavors within and preserve the integrity of the fillings as the dish steams. The leaves also impart their own subtly herbaceous and mildly bitter fragrance into the fixings. Gonzlez further ups the aroma by heating the leaves over hot coals prior to wrapping, which infuses them with smoky flavor and also improves their pliability.

Wrapping dishes in banana leaves was a tradition of our ancestors, she explains. (The whole reason for wrapping food, of course, originates in the need to transport it, according to Mariana Velasquez, author of the cookbook Colombiana: A Rediscovery of Recipes and Rituals from the Soul of Colombia. In these little packets, you have a full meal.) Traditional tamal recipes generally include starches like rice, and meats like chicken or pork, but Gonzlez believed in the versatility of the cooking method. To bring it into the present, we decided to apply this wrapping technique to the fish.

In the kitchen at Baha Restaurant, Gonzlez opens up the leaves slightly before serving, so that the fillings peek out and aromatic steam billows from the unwrapped foliage; diners can dig in right awayno unpacking required. Cartagenas penchant for coconut appears again in a bowl of fragrant coconut rice, served alongside the leaf-cradled tamal. And leaves arent the only part of the banana on the tableeveryone also gets a helping of plantain chips to nibble on as they look out over Bars white-sand shoreline. In many ways, this coastal-inspired meal captures the surroundings perfectly.

Though Gonzlezs tamal may differ from traditional recipes, she considers her interpretation both a celebration of Colombias tradition of expertly wrapping foods, and also a representation of Cartagenas culinary specialties. Through this dish, we pay homage to our traditions and to our ingredients, she says. The person who tastes this fish can take a trip through their palate.

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One Chefs Spin on the Colombian TamalInspired by the Caribbean Coast - Saveur