Nacatamal: Learn to make the Nicaraguan Sunday recipe

If you want to learn how to make the recipe for nacatamal, you must continue reading, because from here you will see all the step by step of this legendary recipe from the land of the pinoleros, Keep reading!

The Nacatamal is one of the typical Nicaraguan foods, most popular and widely consumed in this country, especially on weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, is also consumed in parties such as Christmas and is distributed as a royalty in the celebration of the purest.

This food is traditionally served in most Nicaraguan places with bread and coffee in the morning.

This meal is made from corn dough, vegetables, rice and pork or beef, cooked in banana leaves as we call it in Nicaragua «Hojas de chagüite».

But in addition this food, not only is consumed in the land of Rubén Darío, but also in Honduras, is quite popular and is very similar to the nica recipe.

If you come to Nicaragua, you will know that there is no one who makes or looks for a Nacatamal on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays.

The nica from Friday begins its preparation and then from Saturday to Sunday is sold and distributed to the nicas. And no, I know what you’re thinking, and can I keep one in the refrigerator and eat it on a Monday? Well, you can’t profane a nacatamal, it’s almost a sin in Nicaragua, even if you don’t believe it.

Nacatamal Origin

The reason and the origin of why this dish is consumed on weekends, is because our ancestors, these days celebrated parties or performed ceremonies, in the initiation of villages. Therefore they made this recipe, making it in huge banquets in order to celebrate their victories. Part of this dish is also due to the Maya, who participated in agriculture, as you know corn was their main production.

Corn in Nicaragua is one of the elements in the basic diet and is for obvious reasons the main ingredient of how to make Nacatamales.

Nacatamal ingredients for 6 units

How to make the dough:

• 4 red tomatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 4 chiltomas in pieces
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 2 cups of water or broth
• 1 bun of good grass
• 4 pounds of dough
• 1/3 sour orange
• 1 liter of water
• 1 liter of lard (pork)
• 1 Achote
• 2 bags of vinegar
• Salt

For assembly:

• 12 leaves of bleached banana or chagüite leaves
• 1½ tablespoon of prepared dough
• 1 of 6 potato slices
• 1 of 6 tablespoons of rice soaked and drained
• 1 of 6 slices of chiltoma
• 1 of 6 onion rings
• 1 of 6 tomato slices
• 2 of 12 chilli congos nicas
• 1 of 6 sprigs of good herb
• 1 pound pork shoulder already marinated and diced
• ½ of marinated pork rib
• 6 pieces of marinated bacon
• 6 donkey strips

Preparation of the Nicaraguan Nacatamal

Once we have our dough ready, let it cool a bit and move on to:

Step by step of assembling this dish:

1. We take a bleached banana leaf and on it we add another leaf, but this time in the opposite direction, therefore you will have something similar to a star with 6 peaks.
2. We grab 1 tablespoon and a half (or to taste) of dough (not so much because it will cost you to close it).
3. We add 6 tablespoons of soaked rice, and we add it to the dough we already have in our leaves.
4. From here we proceed to add the following ingredients: 1 red potato, 1 onion, 1 chiltoma, tomato slice, 1 branch of good herb, 2 chilitos, a piece of pork, marinated pork rib and a piece of bacon same way marinated.

Once we have all this ready we proceed to wrap the nacatamales which has a technique:

How to tie a nacatamal

1. We join the right and left ends of our banana leaves.
2. Turn it to the other side, and roll the ends so that the leaves are the protectors of the dough.
3. Now you will have 2 long ends and in the center will be the dough, then once we have that.
4. Check the endings of the doughs and fold them towards the center on both long sides.
5. Let’s try to make the dough as compact as possible. Once all this is ready, we proceed to tie.
6. With our burillo, hydrated (you only have to soak them for a while).
7. What we do is pass a strip under the nacatamal and verify that both sides are of similar lengths.
8. Tie and then once in the center pull to both sides.
9. Turn our whole package over and tie up again (similar to the previous step).
10. And socamos strong so that we do not stay loose and everything fits well as it should.
11. If there is any excess of the strips, cut it with a scissors.

Tips:

• The donkey tries to make it wet, because when you try to tie the nacatamal, it can break.
• Do not make it much dough or much of everything, do it as we mentioned, with a little bit of everything it tastes good and not only for that, also because it will cost you to close it and you are going to make a cockpit in the house and we do not want that .
• With the tie, try whenever it is compacted, the tie to how it can be a turn of the strip, can be up to 3, it is recommended 2 to 3 so that everything is comfortable, if you add a lot it will look horrible and it will cost to open it later.

steps to cook nacatamales of Nicaragua

1. Once we have all our nacatamales, armed and packed.
2. We take a truncheon or wave hole, in the background we add some banana leaves.
3. We proceed to add our nacatamalitos.
4. We put to cook water, once it is irviendo we add it in our porra where they are the nacatamalones that we have created.
5. Once, we add everything, we put to boil in the kitchen, firewood or charcoal for 5 hours.
6. It is essential that it is monitored so that it does not dry out, and if it does, a little water is added.
7. Now that everything is ready, we cover our truncheon, and wait the 5 hours of coxion.
8. When the time has passed, we remove from the fire our truncheon and we give 3 hours of rest so that they cool a little and can be taken out and obviously set quite well and not be watered or hard.

Images of Nicaraguan nacatamales Finger sucking!

Créditos fotos: Facebook

What does Nacatamal eat with? With bread or with tortillas?

There have been a lot of people asking this question throughout 2018, it is indeed a question that went viral in the country and that even if you don’t believe it, it was a lot of debate, since everyone has their tradition. In our case, the most common is to eat it with bread, the bars you want, however, as the title says there is a certain sector that eats it with tortillas, which is a bit counterproductive because the mace is made of corn and the tortilla too.

Anyway for tastes there are colors and flavors therefore I discovered that flavor is better for you, but here in Recipes from Nicaragua, we know that the legendary nacatamal is eaten with Bread and Coffee and is the one we recommend;) Ah! And lastly, nothing to eat from Maseca. What do you think? What team do you follow? Vote in this poll !:

Nicaragua’s largest Nacatamal

 

In Nicaragua we love this food so much that we’ve even made a super ultra hyper mega big, because it’s so great that this food makes you sin. In a good way, because it is so delicious that it doubles and even triples. Here are some images that prove it.

Every year at corn fairs, in many departments of Nicaragua, many are dedicated to cooking the largest Nacatamal. On many occasions they have achieved something like what you see in this image.

Once this enormous dish is ready, indeed if you have arrived at this fair, you can taste for free together with your friends and companions this delicious dish. Would you raffle to eat so much? Believe me! And if you’re going to double and who knows you’ll take your ipegue as a gift for breakfast the next day.

To be in a celebration like this is a delight, so we invite you to be part of it in months like August. In places like: Chinandega, Matagalpa, among other departments, they celebrate it, so we invite you to see here, how this huge Nacatamal is opened, Dale play!

In short, we hope that your mouth is watered and that your palate and stomach make you crave this typical dish. We also hope that you like to know how to cook Nicaraguan Nacatamales, now it’s up to you to do your part and surprise your family. We always read the comments and answer questions, so if you put cooking plan we are to order.