Corunda (Masa Folded into a Triangle in a Corn Leaf)

Name: Corunda (Masa Folded into a Triangle in a Corn Leaf)
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 45 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 500 g Masa harina; 150 g Lard; 400 ml Warm water or stock; 1 tsp Baking powder; 2 tsp Salt; 30 Corn plant leaves; 200 ml Crema; 200 ml Salsa roja; 50 g Cotija cheese

Michoacan's tamal. Where other tamales use a dried husk, a corunda is wrapped in the long green leaf of the corn plant itself, folded over and over until the masa inside is a triangle. It is usually not filled at all — masa, lard and salt. The leaf does the folding the dough cannot do, and what comes out of the steamer is eaten under crema and salsa roja.

Ingredients

6servings

Masa harina · nixtamalised corn flour; plain cornmeal will not work500 g
Lard · at room temperature; vegetable shortening is also used150 g
Warm water or stock · adjust by how the dough behaves400 ml
Baking powder1 tsp
Salt2 tsp
Corn plant leaves · long and green — not the same thing as a dried husk; see Variations30
To serve
Crema · sour cream let down with milk also works200 ml
Salsa roja200 ml
Cotija cheese · crumbled; feta stands in50 g

Steps

Wash and dry the corn leaves; if they are stiff, dip them in boiling water for 30 seconds. They have to fold without cracking.
⏲ 10 min
Beat the lard for 5 minutes until it is white and fluffy — by hand or in a mixer. The air you put in here is the lightness after steaming.
⏲ 5 min
Mix the masa harina, salt and baking powder and work it into the lard, adding warm water until the dough is the consistency of thick cream. A small lump dropped in water should float when it has been beaten enough.
⏲ 15 min
Lay a leaf flat and put two tablespoons of dough at the wide end. Fold one corner of the leaf across on the diagonal to make a triangle, then keep folding the leaf around that triangle. Tuck the end under the leaf itself — no string.
⏲ 20 min
Line the steamer with leaves and stand the corundas up in it, packing the gaps with more leaves so they lean on each other. Fallen over, the dough slumps to one side.
⏲ 5 min
Cover and steam over medium heat for an hour, topping up with boiling water so it never runs dry.
⏲ 60 min
Take one out and unwrap it. When the leaf comes away cleanly from the dough it is done. If it sticks, cover and give them 15 minutes more.
⏲ 15 min
Unwrap, spoon crema and salsa roja over, and crumble the cheese on top. Serve hot.

Tips & Variations

Variations

Ceniza and manteca: the two kinds Michoacan distinguishes. Manteca is what is made here; ceniza is wrapped in reed leaves with a little ash worked into the dough, which darkens it and changes the smell.
Filled: traditionally they are not, but salsa, beans or cheese do go in. The more filling, the harder the folding — a thick triangle will not hold its corners.
If you cannot get leaves: soak dried husks for 30 minutes and overlap two. They are too short for a proper triangle and you get a pillow instead. Banana leaf works but leaves its own smell.
The next day: split them and fry them in a little fat, which is a Michoacan breakfast. Cold, they are firmer and hold together in the pan.
What is in the photograph: unwrapped and plated. At a market they are stacked in their leaves and unwrapped to order.

Tips

The leaf does what the dough cannot. Pupusa states the problem for the same masa: wrapping and sealing answers a splitting seam with pleats, and "masa cannot be pleated, since it tears rather than stretches." A pupusa's answer is to abolish the seam. A corunda goes the other way and moves the seam out of the dough. What gets pleated is the leaf; the masa is never folded at all. The stretch masa does not have, the leaf supplies.
Which is why it is a green leaf and not a dried husk. A dried husk is short and stiff, so it can only be wrapped round once. A leaf pulled off the corn plant is damp, folds without splitting, and is long enough to pass the same spot several times and build a triangle. Cachapa records the other way of using one, where the wrapper is not folded at all: "the batter is wrapped in corn husks and boiled rather than griddled. Much moister, almost like a dumpling."
The triangle is heat transfer, not decoration. For the same volume a triangular prism has more surface than a cylinder, and its corners are heated from three directions at once. That is why these cook faster and more evenly than a fat tamal (steaming).
Beating the lard is half the recipe. Masa has no gluten, so there is no network to inflate. The only leavening is the air you beat mechanically into the fat, and in the steamer those bubbles expand while the starch sets around them. Stir the lard in cold and you get something closer to a rice cake.
The float test is the only check there is. Drop a lump of dough into cold water: if it floats there is enough air in it, and if it sinks keep beating. You cannot see the difference.
The leaf letting go is doneness. Undercooked masa is tacky and clings. Once the starch has fully gelatinised the surface goes smooth and the leaf peels away by itself, which is a better signal than the clock.
Steam them standing up. Laid flat they are pressed by their own weight, the dough slumps to one side and the triangle collapses into a lump. Packing the gaps with leaves so they lean on each other is structure, not presentation.