Name: Baked Unwrapped Tamales with Dried Shrimp (Gueta Bi’ngui’)
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 2 pounds 2 ounces (about 4¼ cups) coarse-ground fresh masa homemade or bought from a supplier, or reconstituted masa made by mixing 3¾ cups masa harina with 2½ cups water; 1½ teaspoon achiote paste; 3 medium-size ripe tomatoes; One 3-ounce package small dried shrimp, tails only; 8 ounces (about 1 cup) lard (preferably home-rendered), gently melted and cooled until lukewarm but still liquid; 1 jalapeño chile; ⅓ cup fresh epazote leaves stripped from stems and coarsely chopped, or 2 tablespoons dried epazote; 2½ teaspoons salt, or to taste

Preparation info

6
servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Food and Life of Oaxaca

By Zarela Martínez

Published 1997

About

The Zapotec name refers to various kinds of tamales containing fish or seafood, made throughout the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Once I bought a gueta bi’ngui’ in a very poor fishing village of the Isthmus and was handed a large banana-leaf package that I unwrapped to find a whole fish inside—head, eyes, fins, tail, and all—lightly coated with masa, in a savory tomato sauce. This dried-shrimp version, which I encountered at a cocktail party in Juchitán, is dramatically different: “naked”