The Gospel of Tamales : Abiquiu chef John Sedlar sees the traditional Christmas dish everywhere, even without chiles, meat, masa and corn husks. Is it madness or is it the next great wave of kitchen genius?

By LAURIE OCHOA

Dec. 21, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES FOOD EDITOR

I’m sitting on the patio of Santa Monica’s Abiquiu, eating a tamale made by the bicoastal Japanese-Peruvian chef Nobu Matsuhisa, who has come to John Sedlar’s restaurant along with several other Los Angeles chefs for a tamale cook-off of sorts.

Each of them, at Sedlar’s invitation, has prepared tamales that reflect the cooking styles of their various restaurants. Sedlar calls it Tamale Madness. Already there has been a polenta, Gorgonzola and sausage tamale from Mauro Vincenti’s Rex il Ristorante. Hans Rockenwagner tackled the difficult salad course with a tamale of duck confit, duck liver mousse and chopped apple and celery root. Still to come are Wolfgang Puck’s braised venison tamale with a base of sweet potato, pine nuts and cranberries and Sedlar’s own dessert plate with a cherries jubilee tamale and one with shredded coconut.

But Matsuhisa’s may be the most exquisite of the night, a beautiful thing wrapped tight like a jewel box that opens to reveal a tamale made with glistening rice in place of masa, and delicate bits of seafood instead of pork. On top is a perfect miniature crab, no bigger than the tip of my thumb, to be eaten, shell and all, in one sweet, crunchy bite. The tamale is delicious, but one question keeps running through my head: What would my grandmother think?

“It sounds nice, mija,” I can hear her saying. “But is it really a tamale?”

The same question could be asked of almost every tamale Sedlar regularly makes for his restaurant: the escargot tamale with garlic butter, the chateaubriand tamale with potato-enriched masa under the beef, the “inside-out” chile relleno tamale with the Hollywood name, “Get Shorty,” in which the masa, fortified with shrimp, is stuffed inside a chile pepper instead of a corn husk. Tamale madness, indeed.

There is precedent for this sort of tamale food play. The Mexican art of tamale making goes far beyond the familiar red chile and green chile. In some parts of Mexico, tamales are filled with alligator meat; in others, with duck, frog, iguana or rabbit. Masa can be made of rice flour or seeds from corn flowers, and in some tamales, tiny fish are steamed without any masa at all. Instead of corn husks, tamales can be wrapped in banana, avocado or hoja santa leaves. There are as many ways to make a tamale as there are ways to fall in love.

Like many Americans with Latino roots, Sedlar grew up in New Mexico eating his aunt’s and his grandmother’s tamales only for special occasions. To Sedlar, a tamale was something to share with family on special occasions, but it wasn’t something he was interested in cooking himself.

Yet as Sedlar trained to be a chef and learned more about classic French cuisine, he found himself thinking more and more about tamales. Wrapping food and steaming it--whether in paper, plastic, aluminum foil or leaves--is a technique common to many cuisines. The popular dim sum cart dumpling made by steaming sticky rice and Chinese sausage inside a lotus leaf could, for instance, be called a tamale if that’s what the cook decided to name it.

Sedlar became obsessed with tamales. He’d make fish en papillote and see a tamale instead. What would happen, he’d think, if he put fish mousse in a corn husk and sauced it as if it were a French dish? What about a tamale with air-dried duck and hoisin plum sauce? Or a saffron-tinted tamale with steamed prawns and clams? What if he ignored the corn husk and steamed lobster and masa right in the shell of a lobster tail?

A few years ago, Sedlar began presenting these tamales to the public.

“I found that if I used the elements of classic dishes as toppings over a masa foundation, the customers would understand immediately what the dish would be,” Sedlar says. He introduced the scampi tamale, a tamale called beef bourguignon, even a soup tamale in which a corn tamale is placed in a bowl and topped with corn chowder.

It’s true that not all of Sedlar’s tamale ideas worked out, but what surprised many people is that most were terrific. His so-called New Wave tamales at Abiquiu are some the most popular items on the menu.

Now Sedlar wants to spread the gospel of tamales beyond his restaurant. He wants other chefs to think of tamales--his goal behind Tamale Madness--and he wants home cooks to make more tamales too.

“Tamale masa can take the place of a crust of pizza,” he says. “It’s like a plate, a base, a foundation.”

Is tamale masa the next Boboli? Can it really compete with pasta?

Probably not. But Sedlar may be on to something.

Most people picture tamale making as labor-intensive, marathon cooking sessions requiring many hands.

“They usually are,” Sedlar says. “But that’s because they’re always prepared around holidays in large batches. They’re celebration dishes. I think it was Diana Kennedy who said, ‘Tamales are for special occasions and it’s an occasion to make a tamale.’ ”

Sedlar, however, is proposing the tamale as everyday food.

“Instead of buying five or 10 pounds of masa during the holidays,” Sedlar suggests, “buy two or three pounds during the week and prepare 12 tamales instead of 120. The shopping time is short, the preparation time is short, the cooking time is short. The masa becomes this wonderful palette on which to add various spices and flavors.”

And these days, the raw ingredients of tamales are easy to find. “There’s such a prevalence of Latin American markets and tortillerias,” Sedlar says, “where fresh masa and corn husks are available. First in Southern California, then in the major metropolitan corridors--Miami, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco.”

Once the masa is whipped with some sort of fat--Sedlar prefers olive oil, purists like lard and others use vegetable shortening--it can be refrigerated or frozen, ready to pull out for a meal that can be prepared in less than 30 minutes.

For most meat tamales done this way, you’ll have to cook “the protein,” as Sedlar calls it, ahead of time. But if you use fish or fresh vegetables, the whole process can be fast food.

To prove his big ideas can work not just in restaurant kitchens but at home, Sedlar came up with three tamale recipes for the home cook. They may not replace the traditional red chile Christmas tamale, but they are elegant enough to serve at a holiday dinner and might even be the stuff of an ordinary Sunday dinner. Despite their fancy names, we found these tamales surprisingly simple to make. Boboli, watch out.

ESCARGOT TAMALES

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup finely chopped garlic

1 bunch parsley, leaves only, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

12 corn husks

1 pound Basic Tamale Dough or masa preparada

1 teaspoon butter

3/4 cup sliced mushrooms

Salt and pepper

1 cup veal stock

2 (4 1/2-ounce) cans snails, drained, sliced thin

1/2 cup diced smoked ham

1/2 cup chopped chives

Mix together butter, garlic, parsley and salt. Cover tightly and refrigerate.

Soften in warm water 6 corn husks and evenly divide masa among the husks. Wrap and place in steamer. Cook over boiling water until firm, about 15 minutes.

Tie remaining 6 corn husks into “boats” for garnish.

Place 1 teaspoon butter in skillet and cook mushrooms over high heat until soft. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add veal stock, snails, ham and garlic butter. Stir until butter melts into sauce.

Remove tamales from steamer. Unwrap and place in tamale “boat” for garnish. Add chives to sauce and divide sauce evenly among the 6 tamales.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

441 calories; 3,364 mg sodium; 104 mg cholesterol; 37 grams fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 18 grams protein; 0.58 gram fiber.

THE CHATEAUBRIAND TAMALE

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup chopped fresh tarragon leaves

2 shallots, diced fine

4 egg yolks

1 1/2 cups clarified butter

Salt

White pepper

1 pound Basic Tamale Dough or masa preparada

3/4 cup fine-diced peeled baking potatoes

12 corn husks

6 (3-ounce) filet mignon steaks

Black pepper

6 sprigs tarragon, for garnish

Boil red wine vinegar, chopped tarragon and shallots in saucepan over medium heat until almost all vinegar evaporates. Cool.

In top of double boiler over medium heat, whip egg yolks until firm. Beat in clarified butter in thin stream, stirring constantly. Add salt and white pepper to taste. Whisk in strained shallot-tarragon reduction.

Mix masa and diced potatoes. Soak 6 corn husks and fill with potato-masa mixture.

Steam tamales over boiling water until potatoes are cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Season steaks lightly on both sides with salt and pepper. Over grill or in skillet, cook steaks to desired doneness.

Tie remaining corn husks into “boats.” remove tamales from steamer and from corn husks and place in corn husk “boat.”

Gently lay steak over tamale and nap with sauce. Garnish with sprig of tarragon.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

867 calories; 1,219 mg sodium; 344 mg cholesterol; 61 grams fat; 55 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 0.23 gram fiber.

THE ‘GET SHORTY’ TAMALE

TAMALES

6 Anaheim chiles, seeds and veins removed

6 shrimp, peeled and de-veined

1 pound Basic Tamale Dough or masa preparada

1 cup court bouillon or chicken broth

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

6 corn husks

Carefully slit each chile down middle and remove seeds and veins. Set aside. Poach shrimp in chicken stock until cooked. Cool. Dice finely and add to tamale masa with garlic.

Carefully stuff chiles with masa-shrimp mixture. Wrap each chile with plastic wrap. Place chiles in steamer and cook over medium heat until chile and masa are firm, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Artfully tie top of each corn husk so husk opens like a boat.

Remove chiles from steamer and carefully remove plastic wrap. Place in corn husk in middle of large plate with dollop of salsa on top.

SALSA

1/2 ripe pineapple, cored and diced fine

1 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped

1/2 red onion, diced fine

2 jalapeno chiles, seeds and veins removed and diced fine

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Juice of 2 lemons

Combine pineapple, cilantro, onion, jalapenos, salt, pepper and lemon juice and chill.

Makes 6 servings.