Take a right turn onto North Greensboro Street. There, looming out of the darkness, are a pair of piercing headlights.
Now turn into the parking lot, deserted except for five other cars parked in a row facing the hulking white delivery van, its cutout window spilling greenish florescent light into the night. Outside two men in tee shirts and leather jackets hop from one foot to the other in the 28 degree chill.
It’s not what you think.
But I do get a shiver of illicit delight whenever I stop at this no-name taco truck to pick up a dozen of what are surely the best tamales in North Carolina. For $24 (that’s $2 per tamale) I get two paper plates, each stacked with six fan-shaped tamales, elegantly wrapped in golden corn husks, neatly bow-tied with a narrow strip of the same husk. The aroma is so mouthwatering that it’s all I can do to get back to the car before ripping into them.
The true test of a superior tamale cook—and they are rarer than you might think—is the quality of the masa or cornmeal which encloses the filling. The very best is light, almost silken in texture. This masa, made from white cornmeal, is indeed light, with a velvety mouth feel that comes, I suspect, from just the right amount of lard energetically beaten into the masa, and it crumbles softly when cut with a fork. The flavor is earthy and meaty, peppery and salty, with a rich, brothy taste—about as close to umami as Mexican food can get. The filling is almost an afterthought—just a few shreds of chicken, with a smear of luscious green salsa spiked with fiery chiles—but the balance of flavors is near perfect.
Who makes these packets of deliciousness? The doe-eyed girl in the truck window giggles and looks away. OK, I wouldn’t tell either. But what about the unusual fan-shape, one I’ve never seen anywhere in Mexico? There are two guys working the burners behind her, One turns and says, “Son de Cancun.” Ok, then. (Later I hear that this shape is common in parts of Central America., so maybe Cancun isn’t too far off the mark.)
A pair of these luscious tamales makes a perfect late night supper and an even better breakfast on a frosty winter morning. Steam them over boiling water for 5 to 7 minutes and serve them with a cup of foamy Mexican hot chocolate. Worth getting up for, even on Sunday.
The no-name taco truck can be found in the parking lot at 309 North Greensboro Street in Carrboro from 6 PM to midnight most weekend nights.
Mexican Hot Chocolate
Mexican chocolate, oozing warm from the deafening mill at Chocolate Mayordoma near Oaxaca’s Mercado de Abastos, is a wondrous thing—freshly roasted cacao bean pulverized with almonds, sugar and crumbly Ceylon cinnamon bark to one’s personal taste. It’s about as close to heaven as a confirmed chocoholic can get.
Here in the U.S. look for large round tablets of Mexican chocolate—Ibarra is the best commercial brand—at Hispanic markets. Or make your own Mexican hot chocolate by beating really good dark chocolate—I use Valrhona Manjari 64 percent—into simmering milk with ground almonds and a bit of Ceylon cinnamon. Here’s the recipe:
To make one cup of hot chocolate
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
1 ounce Valrhona Guanaja 70 percent chocolate, chopped
1 to 2 teaspoons ground almonds (see note)
1/2 teaspoon ground Ceylon cinnamon
Sugar (optional)
1 Ceylon cinnamon stick (optional)
Method:
Heat the milk to simmering. Beat in the chocolate with a whisk until it melts into the hot milk. Add the ground almonds and cinnamon and continue beating until the chocolate is foamy. Taste and add sugar if desired. The chocolate should be thick, foamy and bittersweet to the taste. Serve at once, with a cinnamon stick if you like.
Note: I grind almonds in my Krups spice mill, then clean the blades by grinding a teaspoon of raw rice grains to a fine powder.