By Ann Meyer
Tucked into a strip mall in Fresno, Calif., Casa de Tamales’ modest storefront appearance belies the award-winning, flavorful, good-for-you fare found inside.
The restaurant’s gluten-free Pepperoni & Cheese and Chipotle Chicken & Bacon tamales won the top Buyers’ Choice Award at the Fresno Food Expo in August for Liz Sanchez, president and owner of the restaurant, who created them. But the recipes were in a way generations in the making.
“The entrepreneurial spirit ran through my family pretty heavily,” says Sanchez, who has been experimenting with tamale recipes since she was a teenager.
Sanchez’ role model is her grandmother, Hermelinda Martinez, who operated several tortilla factories in La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico, where Sanchez visited as a child. “I would go in there and I would watch the process. I would watch her interacting with her neighbors and her customers....I drew inspiration a lot from her and I knew I wanted that,” Sanchez says. “She was known in town for not only her delicious food but because she was more of a pioneer.”
Sanchez’ uncle also owned a restaurant in Fresno, where Sanchez worked at as a teenager—an experience that led her to a 15-year corporate foodservice career. While employed, Sanchez turned to the Food Network and the Internet for new cooking techniques. After 15 years of corporate employment, Sanchez decided to venture out on her own: Casa de Tamales debuted in late 2009.
The restaurant received stellar reviews that brought an initial rush of customers, says José Aguilar, general manager, who is also Sanchez’ husband. The 1,200-square-foot casual eatery offers counter service and about nine tables for dining. It is lightly decorated with mostly Hispanic art on the walls, including a Diego Rivera print of women assembling corn husk towers, and a display of corn husk dolls. But the draw for most customers is Sanchez’ inno- vative recipes. She makes masa from scratch on the premises, which allows her to add new flavors to her grandmother’s Old World recipes, creating what she calls “classic and modern fusion.”
“It’s new flavors, bold flavors, along with healthier versions and healthier options,” she says. “I call it ‘Old World meets New World.’”
Customer Favorites
Among the most popular items on the restau- rant’s menu are a Pumpkin Pie tamale, made with pumpkin puree blended with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Sanchez uses sweet masa with shaved carrot for added texture and tops it with gluten free graham crackers. Customers request the pumpkin pie tamale all year, but Sanchez saves it for fall. “We brought the pumpkin pie tamale out a week early this year, we had so much demand for it,” says Aguilar. It will be available through Nov. 30.
While the Pumpkin Pie tamale might be more popular in the fall than Sanchez’ Blueberry Cream Cheese tamale, Sanchez says the latter inspired her to start her business. It was years in the making. When Sanchez was growing up, her family would make traditional pork, jalapeño and cheese, and cinnamon-raisin tamales during the holiday season. When she was 15 or 16 years old, she complained to her mother that every year they had the same type of tamales. “She gave me this look, like you ungrateful child. And she kind of did this, ‘Okay, well go out and do your own thing,’” Sanchez recalls. So Sanchez did.
She experimented with several recipes using blueberries but they weren’t quite right. “It was a laughing joke for the family; it was like, ‘When is Liz going to show up with her blueberry tamales?’” she says. “It was a mess for about five holiday seasons.”
But Sanchez kept at it. “Finally it occurred to me to do a few things different with the masa, treat the masa different...I stopped making it as if it were a savory masa and made it more as if I were making a cake.” Adding more margarine and sugar produced a softer texture that pairs well with the blueberry puree in the masa and the sweet cream cheese filling.
Customers also return for the Green Tomatillo Chicken Tamale with Roasted Corn Salsa and the New Mexico Chili Pork Tamale with Red Sauce. The gourmet Creamy Chicken Poblano Tamale, made with poblanos, potatoes and casero cheese all stuffed in jalapeño cilantro masa and topped with creamy tomatillo sauce, is another favorite.
Sanchez includes at least four vegetarian tamales on the menu, such as Jalapeño and Cheese topped with tomatillo sauce and stuffed in red chile masa, and a vegan Farmers Market Tamale with tomatillo sauce and stuffed in jalapeño masa. “We cook the veggies, we season them first and then use that as a filling, so it’s not just raw vegetables inside,” Sanchez says.
While Sanchez has kept the same menu since she opened the restaurant, she rotates new items approximately every two months. “Our regulars will constantly challenge me; ‘Liz, what do you have that’s new today?’” she says.
Handling the Holidays
Many people still think of tamales as a holiday dish, and Casa de Tamales’ business picks up when customers place holiday orders. “The first holiday here I was so pleasantly surprised to find out how many nationalities have tamales [for Christmas Eve dinner],” Sanchez says.
Sanchez and her team start planning in early October. They’ll consider the restaurant’s growth this year to come up with a projection for the number of tamales it’s likely to sell during the holidays. “People order them to take home” for their holiday dinners, Sanchez says.
From the forecast, Sanchez determines the required staffing and production capacity to build up an inventory for December. Typically, production becomes a 24-hour operation in the seven days before Christmas.
While the company’s overall revenue growth is up about 25 percent to 30 percent from a year ago, Sanchez is projecting its holiday sales will increase 35 percent to 40 percent from last Christmas. The restaurant will likely ring up $475,000 in sales this year.
At press time, Sanchez and Aguilar were finalizing plans with Whole Foods Market to sell tamales in 25 store locations in November—just in time for the holiday season. The tamales will be available in the retailer’s cold deli and hot bar, while the company also sells frozen tamales direct to consumers from its website. Production for the tamales sold at Whole Foods will be outsourced to a manufacturing company that will use Sanchez’ recipe, Aguilar says.
Marketing Matters
Retail sales are likely to accelerate the awareness of the brand. To date, sampling at local events and sales through the food trailer have proven to be the best way to overcome consumer uncertainty about the restaurant’s gluten-free, lard-free recipes. When consumers sample the product, they often buy it. “It’s grassroots marketing. That’s how we’ve been able to get our word out there,” Sanchez says.
The company also promotes its new menu items on Facebook, where it also occasionally runs contests. It also participates in charitable events, giving away certificates for its tamales as a donation. The company’s recent award at the Fresno Food Expo carried with it exposure in the local media. “We saw it as a real legitimization of our brands. I’ll tell you what, a lot more people were calling in for delivery,” Aguilar says.
But word-of-mouth referrals are still the restaurant’s best marketing tool. “People really get into the tamales because they’re either vegan or gluten-free,” Aguilar says. The original recipes set the restaurant in a category all its own. “We have had one or two restaurants try to knock off our masa, but they don’t make it the same. You can’t take short cuts with this type of food,” Aguilar says.
While many restaurants purchase ready-made tamales, Casa de Tamales makes them on premise and allows diners to watch the masa-making process from a window inside the restaurant to the kitchen.
Sanchez starts with local, non-GMO dehydrated corn that she soaks for a day, cooks for an hour, then soaks again for another 24 hours before grinding it with stones like those used in Mex- ico. “We cook and grind our own corn to make our masa,” she says. They mix the corn with a small amount of salt and corn oil and hand-spread that onto the corn husks. Sanchez says she can produce about 60 tamales an hour, while the other workers at Casa de Tamales easily make about 80 an hour.
“When you think about it from the marketing perspective, what’s the best marketing we’ve got? I’d have to say Liz. She really believes in what she is doing,” Aguilar says.
The restaurant added a food trailer so it could travel around the area and gain new customers. The success of a downtown stop at the Market on Kern spurred Sanchez and Aguilar to decide to launch a second sit-down restaurant scheduled to open in January. “It [the downtown Fresno area] has been very good to us. We go there two days a week and typically sell out of tamales when we go,” Sanchez says. The new restaurant will have a modern industrial feel in keeping with the influx of tech companies coming to the area, and it will be upscale with an artisan style sangria and premium entrees.
Sanchez is training new staffers now to give them practice in her current location before transferring them to the new restaurant when it opens.
If all goes well, Sanchez would like to expand to other cities. “We’re seriously looking into another location or food truck in another big city,” like San Francisco or Los Angeles, she says. But Sanchez also could open in Manhattan. “If there’s an investor out there for me, I’m all for it,” she says.
Pumpkin Pie Tamales
Recipe courtesy of Casa de Tamales
Makes 35 to 40 tamales
The Sweet Masa
5 lbs. finely stone ground masa
3 c. white sugar
2 c. vegan margarine, slightly melted
1⁄4 c. baking powder
4 T. salt
3 c. finely shaved pumpkin skin
Combine all ingredients in a mixer. Mix thoroughly, for 5 minutes. Refrigerate so the masa is a bit firm, this will make it easier to spread.
The Pumpkin Pie Filling
1 gal. pumpkin puree (unsweetened) 1 c. rice milk
1⁄2 c. white sugar
1⁄2 c. brown sugar
1⁄4 c. brown rice flour
1⁄4 c. tapioca flour
1⁄4 c. pumpkin spices (see recipe below; you may want to start with less and add the seasoning to your preference)
Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Taste and adjust pumpkin spices to your preference. Refrigerate for minimum 2 hours.
The Pumpkin Spice
1⁄4 c. ground cinnamon
1⁄4 c. ground cloves
1⁄4 c. ground nutmeg
1⁄4 c. ground ginger
Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl. store in an air tight container. You will not need all of it, but will be happy you made extra—it comes in handy for the holiday season.
To assemble the tamales: spread 2.25 oz. of masa on corn husks in a rectangular space that is approximately 5” x 4”. add approximately 2.25 oz. of filling, fold corn husks end to end. Place all carefully in a steamer pot, with water on the bottom. (You may want to use a couple of steamer pots.) Turn on heat to medium, cover steamer and cook for 2 hours or until masa pulls cleanly off the husks. Serve warm with (gluten-free) graham crackers sprinkled on top with whipped cream.
Tomatillo Chicken Tamale with Roasted Corn Salsa
(Make with approximately 5 lbs. of your own masa recipe)
Recipe courtesy of Casa de Tamales
Makes approximately 24 tamales
The Tomatillo Sauce:
4 lbs. tomatillos
2 T. salt
4 cloves of fresh, peeled garlic
2 T. corn oil
1 med. size yellow onion, peeled and rough chopped
Half a bunch of fresh cilantro, washed and rough chopped
2 gal. water
In a large stock pot, bring water to a boil and add tomatillos. Turn down heat to medium, cover and ensure all tomatillos are sub- merged. allow to simmer just enough until tomatillos are soft, add garlic and salt. Be care- ful to not over cook them. Drain water, reserve approximately 1 quart of the tomatillo water. set aside.
In a sauté pan, heat oil and add garlic and onions, until onions are translucent. add to the stock pot of your tomatillos, add fresh cilantro and approximately 1 cup of water. With a handheld blender, puree until smooth. use more reserved tomatillo water if necessary. The thickness should coat the back of the spoon. allow to completely cool.
The Chicken Filling:
4 lbs. of raw chicken. Your choice of white, dark or combination, no bones.
1 T. salt
3 gal. water
In a large stock pot, add water, chicken and salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes, until chicken is fully cooked. strain, allow to cool enough to hand shred the chicken to bite size pieces. Do not over shred, chunks hold up nicer inside the tamale. Cool completely.
In a mixing bowl, combine chicken with 4 cups of cold tomatillo sauce. The mixture should be very saucy.
The Roasted Corn Salsa:
8 ears of corn on the cob, peeled
1 c. diced red onion
1⁄4 c. chopped cilantro
1 t. salt
2 T. chipotle pureed
1⁄4 c. fresh lime juice
Peel husks off corn, clean off corn silk thoroughly. Begin grilling. Rotate corn until roasted on all sides. Cool completely.
Remove kernels from the cob, add to a mixing bowl with the remaining ingredients. Keep refrigerated until serving.
To assemble the tamales: You will need approximately 5 lbs. of masa. soak corn husks for minimum 2 hours, so they are pliable. spread approximately 2.25 oz. of masa on corn husks in a rectangular space that is approximately 5” x 4”. add approximately 2.25 oz of chicken filling, fold corn husks end to end. Place all carefully in a steamer pot, with water on the bottom. Turn on heat to medium, cover steamer and cook for 2 hours or until masa pulls cleanly off the husks. Warm the remainder of the tomatillo sauce. serve atop the chicken tamales, with roasted corn salsa on the side.