Tamale Pie

Tamale Pie from Recipes from Dawn's Daily Life

Beef Filling Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 (16 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (15 ounce) can corn, drained
1/2 cup sliced black olives
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2-4 teaspoons chili powder
1 dash pepper
1 (15 ounce) can black beans or refried beans
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese

Cornmeal Topping

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups cold water
1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Directions:  Cook meat, onion, and green pepper in a large skillet until meat is browned; drain fat. Stir in tomato sauce, corn, olives, garlic, seasonings, and beans; simmer, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes or until thick; stir in cheese then remove from heat.

Meanwhile, stir cornmeal, salt, and cold water together in a saucepan; cook over medium-high heat (please be careful as hot cornmeal mixture may splatter) for a minute or two, stirring constantly until thick. Remove from heat and stir in butter.

Turn meat filling into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish that has been lightly coated with non-stick cooking spray. Spoon cornmeal topping evenly over entire top of beef filling.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes or until cornmeal topping is set and beef filling is bubbly. Serve topped with salsa and sour cream.

NOTE: Family-sized portions of the cooked beef filling freeze excellently in Ziploc freezer bags - To serve: Just thaw, turn meat filling into a prepared baking dish, quickly make and spoon on a proportional amount (for a frozen half-batch to be baked in an 8x8" pan, prepare topping using 1/2 cup cornmeal and 1 1/3 cup water) of cornmeal topping, bake and enjoy

Modifications:
-I used a can of Southwestern Bean Salad which includes a couple of different beans, corn and chili spices.
-I used white corn meal instead of yellow corn meal.
-I did not have a can of black olives so I left them out.

Here's what I started with:

Here's how I did it:

#1 I cut up an onion and green pepper.  I put them in a wrought-iron skillet with 93/7 ground beef.

#2 I preheated the oven to 375 degrees.

#3 Once the ground beef is browned, I drained the meat.  I then added the tomato sauce, corn, beans and spices.  I let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

#4 While the mixture was simmering, I measured out the white corn meal mix and added water.  I let it cook until it was thick, pulled it off the stove and added 1 Tbsp of butter.

#5 I added the cheese to the meat mixture and pulled it off the stove, transferred it to a coated 9x13 baking dish and smoothed it out.

#6 Once the butter was added to the corn meal, I poured it out on top of the meat mixture.

#7 In to the oven for about 45 minutes.

The Finished Product:

Review:

This dish was really good.  It had the Mexican-style taste that we love and it was easy to make.

I did pull out the tortilla chips and taco shells in case anyone wanted to add a little extra crunch.  Scott made nachos out of his plate and he had 3 helpings!

I was a little wary of the corn meal mix on top but I actually wish that there was more of it.  I wonder how it would taste if I were to add the thickened corn meal mixture throughout the entire casserole?  The top layer or bite of this was really good with the extra texture of the baked corn meal but it was it was the second and third layers where the bites were basically just the meat filling.  (If you know if I could mix the corn meal in with the rest and make it have corn meal bites throughout, let me know!)

Overall, this was a successful dish.

Hope you enjoy!

April