I don't think there will be disagreement with what I say. Based on your description on the ingredients and how you made them, they were the most delicious tamales ever. dcarch

Here is a recipe I wrote for basic chili sauce and posted here eight years ago: Basic Chili Sauce 8 whole, dried chilies (Ancho, Pasilla, Guajillo combination*) 2 cups water 3 cloves garlic 1 tsp dried or fresh oregano 1 tsp red wine or balsamic vinegar (optional) Remove the stems from the chilies and slit open to remove seeds and membranes. Place the chilies in a saucepan with the rest of the ingredients (except the vinegar) and simmer covered for 20-30 minutes, or microwave for about 2-1/2 minutes and let stand for 20 minutes, microwave for one minute more and let stand another 10 minutes. Blend coarsely with a stick blender (or pulse in a blender), and strain the mixture through a coarse sieve (or food mill) to remove chili skins. Store in glass jar in refrigerator until ready to use. If you plan to store it very long, add 1 tsp of vinegar - I normally use it within 2-3 days, if not immediately, however. For two cups of water, I would use 3 Ancho chilies, 2 Pasilla chiles and 3 Guajillo chilies, all of which are dried, but you can vary the amounts. Using 4 Anchos and 4 Guajillos is also good. For the last chili sauce I made, I used fresh Poblano chilies (in place of Pasilla chilies) and smoked them, but you could roast them over a gas flame instead. I do not use any raw fresh chilies in chili sauce, and some people fire roast the dried ones before making sauce, but I have not found that to be necessary. I make a Habanero chili sauce with chilies from my back yard, and I grill them (in a grill pan) over mesquite charcoal/wood with some red bell peppers to make a Habanero sauce that is very potent, which is why I add the red bell peppers. I add quite a bit of vinegar and salt to my Habanero sauce so that it will keep longer, as it takes me a while to use it up. True chili sauce does not have tomato in it - if it does, it is then what I know as Adobo sauce, which I also make but use differently. Chilies have a very distinctive flavor that is best appreciated in a pure form to start with, and then you can combine them with other ingredients, but it is best to start with a pure chili sauce, and then it will be more versatile, and you will appreciate the true flavor of the chilies. The chilies I listed for the basic chili sauce are all very mild (by my standards), and so I generally add habanero sauce as needed for heat. If you want to use Arbol chilies, make a sauce with them by themselves - they do not blend well with other chilies. They are good in Adobo sauce and benefit by being diluted with tomato, but their flavor is so complex that I find them difficult to utilize. Where I grew up, you could order one alarm, two alarm, or three alarm chili (made with beef), and I never went beyond two alarm. I think in Minnesota, the one alarm chili in Texas would have been way too hot! I eat chili sauce every day, in one form or another, whereas I seldom use black pepper, although I do like it. I find the flavor of the various chilies to be more complex and interesting. Lars

Just had some of the leftover for dinner tonight and it tastes even better then it did last night. I forgot to say that I used a rotisserie chicken from Walmart. It really is quick and easy to make. houstonmom, be sure to let us know if your family liked it. dedtired, the placemats are Better Home and Garden from Walmart. I hope you all like it...

I haven't seen the tamale show or the recipe. America's Test Kitchen is an offshoot of Cook's Illustrated, whose annoying marketing practices I've long tolerated as a subscriber because I think so highly of the work they do and their approach to food. Rather than the fluffy style followed historically by so many others in this field, founder (and now bought out and departed) Chris Kimball instead focused the recipe development on sometimes unconventional approaches, the science of the processes and repeated trial and error to optimize flavor and the end results. I believe they started a revolution and have had a profound impact on recipe development and recipe book writing ever since. Alumni of CI, like J Kenji Lopez Alt at Serious Eats, similarly has a loyal following and provides interesting, well researched recipes that work. They don't bat 1000 and as is not uncommon with recipes from other sources, some recipes are clunkers or simply more difficult than many may want to follow. Some are not unlike Julia Chld's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which has exquisite and classical recipes so long as you have plenty of time and nothing else to do. As far as putting separate ingredients in little containers on the TV programs, usually glass ones for visibility, that's common on cooking shows so that viewers can see what's there.