A Tamale Pie My Mother Would Recognize

Before Blue Apron and Purple Carrot, there was Hamburger Helper and Swanson's frozen dinners. Before that, in the days of yore when I was growing up, when my father didn't have time to hunt down a brontosaurus, my mother made do with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and an arsenal of Lipton's dehydrated products. Spanish rice, tuna casserole and pot roast were her go-to dinners, egged on by the women's magazines of the day like the Ladies Home Journal that—shades of Betty Draper—gave busy homemakers tips on "quick dinners your family will love!"

Tamale pie was one of those dinner solutions, though in the days when most Americans considered spaghetti sauce "spicy food," its call for the addition of chili powder was a bridge too far for many. But my dad loved him some zing, so my mom would occasionally pep up her dinner rotation with chili powder-inflected goulash or tacos with hot sauce.

I'd been looking for a tamale pie recipe for those times when I'm feeling a bit of nostalgia for the casserole dinners of my childhood, and my friend Lizzy shared one recently that brought back a flood of cornmeal-scented, cheesy memories. Updated with a few adaptations using local cornmeal and grassfed beef, locally grown and roasted tomatoes and some tangy cheddar from Face Rock Creamery in Bandon, it fit the bill perfectly. I hope it will for you, too!

Tamale Pie

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 onion
2 poblano peppers, chopped in 1/4” dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 lbs. ground meat (beef, chicken or turkey)
2 c. roasted tomatoes
2 c. corn kernels
1/2 c. chicken stock
2 tsp. ancho chile powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 c. cornmeal
1 c. grated cheddar or jack cheese
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat. (If using cast iron skillet, you can bake the casserole in it, as well.) When it shimmers, add ground meat and sauté until the meat is browned. Add onion and sauté until tender, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and pepper and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chile powder and cumin and stir briefly, then add tomatoes, corn kernels and broth. Bring to a simmer. Salt to taste.

While meat mixture simmers, bring 2 cups water to a boil. Slowly add cornmeal, stirring vigorously to prevent lumping. (Mixture will be quite thick.) Add 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste. Stir cornmeal mixture into other ingredients. Put mixture into casserole (if you are using a cast iron skillet, you can bake the casserole in this). Sprinkle cheese over the top and bake about 30 minutes.

Here's another version of tamale pie with a cornbread topping.

Flashback to Childhood: Tamale Pie

My mother was a ground meat maven. With three growing kids, hamburger gave her a relatively cheap way to feed a large family, and the women's magazines she subscribed to—filled with advice on wifely skills like cooking, entertaining and raising children—invariably had several recipes in each issue that called for a pound or two.

It was a time when herbs like thyme, basil and oregano were considered exotic, when Italian food was too spicy for some folks and, when tacos were introduced to middle-class tables, they were made with oil-fried tortillas, hamburger and Tillamook medium cheddar. In addition to tacos, ground beef was a primary ingredient in (so-called) Spanish rice, spaghetti sauce and a version of "goulash" that featured macaroni noodles, canned corn and more cheddar. Each of which made regular appearances on our dinner table.

Every once in awhile in a fit of nostalgia I'll get a craving for one of my mom's aforementioned dinner classics—I've already written about my reimagining of her tuna casserole—and I'll start going through the little metal boxes of recipes I copied out onto 3" by 5" cards when I was leaving for college. If that fails to turn up a lead, I'll resort to searching online for some clues.

A couple of weeks ago I'd pulled some grass-fed ground beef out of the freezer from the portion I bought from Clare at Big Table Farm and was musing over the possibilities. What sprang to mind was the cornbread-topped, chili powder-inflected American-take-on-Mexican casserole my mother would carry to the table and set before her ravening offspring.

Tamale Pie

For the cornbread topping:
1 c. flour
1 c. cornmeal
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 c. milk
2 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
2 eggs
1 c. cheddar cheese, grated

For the filling:
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 lb. hamburger
1 onion, chopped fine
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 poblano or Anaheim chiles, chopped fine
1 1/2 c. corn
1 tsp. oregano
2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. cumin
2 c. roasted tomatoes
Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 375°.

Mix dry ingredients for topping in medium mixing bowl. Add milk, melted butter and eggs. Stir to combine. Add cheese and mix thoroughly.

Heat oil in large skillet. Add hamburger and brown, chopping into small bits as it cooks. Add onion and garlic and sauté till tender. Add chiles and corn and sauté till chiles are tender. Add spices and tomatoes and bring to simmer. Pour into 9" by 12" baking dish. Top with corn batter by dropping spoonfuls on top of the hamburger mixture and gently spreading it to cover the top. Place baking dish in oven and bake 45 min. until topping is browned.