my 1st attempt at tamales

sooo, my first attempt at tamales was not a flop, just a learning experience, I was working off of a few recipes, i wanted to try to duplicate some I had eaten a few years back, very non-greasy, south american version with potatoes, green olives and chicken......I forgot to put the potatoes in mine, and my filling was a little light in the masa to meat ratio, but they were good and enough to let me know I can make them again and keep adjusting on the ratio until it is what we like......picture is a close up, i want to find the darker yellow masa, this bag said yellow corn meal but the actual contents are very white in my opinion, i think the darker yellow might be more of a visual than taste, but i have to try it all! my 1st attempt at tamales, originally uploaded by glitzypursegirl.

• 2 cups warmed chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 cups lime treated cornmeal (ma se ca was the only brand i could find here)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup shortening

I made a small batch of about 10 smallish tamales with leftover chicken cut off the carcass, grated cheese and 30 green olives cut in 1/2...i used 1 tablespoon chicken and 1 tablespoon cheese per tamale, with 4-6 olive halves, next time I will put more filling, just wanted to follow the recipe i had I heated the broth in a saucepan with the cumin, then added it to the cornmeal baking powder and salt, mixing it by hand to insure there were no lumps, i blended the shortening with an electric mixer to kind of whip it up and then added the cornmeal/broth mixture in 3 increments, finishing by smushing in by hand to insure even distribution, it was pretty easy.......I had corn husks, fresh from shucking corn yesterday, i put them in boiling water in a rectangular pan to make sure they were pliable, and let them sit to cool in the water in the pan for about 30 minutes, i made square tamales by folding one husk in each direction around the filling mentioned above, I first tried to steam them above my rice in the rice cooker, but they were not getting enough heat, so i put them in an electric vegi steamer alone for an hour with a damp rag on top of them, and they were perfectly cooked in that hour!