Tamales

Masa dough (corn meal blended with lard or oil) wrapped around a filling of pork in red chilli sauce, chicken in green tomatillo sauce, rajas with cheese, or sweet preparations like pineapple-and-raisin, then steamed inside corn husks (or banana leaves in southern Mexico). The signature is the distinctive masa texture: pillowy, faintly nixtamal-corn-sweet, against whatever filling sits inside, with the corn husk imparting a gentle vegetal aroma. Assuming pork-in-red-chilli tamales, the most common savoury preparation.