what's cooking wednesday - tamale pie

My favourite little local Mexican restaurant has a pretty fantastic tamale pie on their menu, so when I cam across this recipe I knew I had to try and recreate it at home.




Tamale Pie

2 cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 ground beef
1 lrg onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (16 oz) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (10 oz) enchilada sauce
1 can (4 oz) chopped green chilies
1 can (2 1/4 oz) sliced ripe olives
2 tsp chili powder
2tsp minced fresh cilantro
3/4 cup shredded cheese

In a small sauce pan, bring the water, salt and a cayenne to a boil. Reduce heat to a gentle boil and slowly whisk in the cornmeal. Cook and stir with a wooden spoon for 15-20 minutes or until polenta is thickened and pulls away cleanly from the sides of the pan.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook the beef, onion, green pepper and garlic over medium heat until cooked through. Stir in the beans, enchilada sauce, chilies, olives, chili powder and cilantro, heat through.

Spread polenta on the bottom of a greased 8 inch square baking dish. Top with meat mixture. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 5 minutes longer until the cheese is melted.

Recipe Notes: So I ended up building this upside down. You see it's more like a shepherd's pie at my favourite Mexican place in presentation, so that 's what I did. As much as I wanted to love this I didn't. Mike was pretty unimpressed with it as well. This won't be making it into rotation, I'm just going to leave the tamale pie up the professionals at the Thirsty Cactus.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page.

*All front page links will be deleted!*
*Posts that aren't linked back will be deleted*
*Posts that don't include some sort of a recipe will be deleted*

Don't make me be a jerk. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday