When you are ready to assemble your tamales, prep your work station. Take the masa out of the refrigerator out and give it a good stir! Fill a medium bowl with some of the chilled meat filling. You don't want to have the large bowl of meat sitting out the whole time, so just take out little at a time. Pull some of the corn husks from the soaking water and shake off the excess water. Have a tray or baking sheet ready to place your filled tamales.
Take one corn husk and tear off one side until you have a husk that is about 4 1/2 inches wide in the middle. it should fit comfortably in the palm of your hand. Using a spoon, scoop about 3 tablespoons of masa onto the center of the corn husk. Apply some pressure as you press and spread the masa towards the sides of the husk. If it's easier for you to use a plastic masa spreader, than use that. I am comfortable with a spoon, lol! Lay the husk with masa slightly layered on the baking sheet or on the counter.
When ready, fill each tamal with roughly 3-4 tablespoons of meat filling. Don't be skimpy! Fold in the sides of the tamal so they overlap. if they don't overlap, you added too much filling. If you are using the deli sheets, place the tamal in the center and you can try to wrap it tightly like a small burrito. Just make sure you know which is the open end.
Once tamales are ready to be steamed, prepare the steamer pot. Fill to the line indicated in the pot. Some like to add a few pennies to the bottom. Coins will rattle when water begins to boil. If the coins don't rattle, that means you ran out of water and you don't want that. Add the steamer insert. Place a few extra softened corn husk on top of steamer insert.
Place the filled and wrapped tamales, open end up into steamer pot. Don't over fill the pot. You want them to fit comfortably. A trick I use sometimes to get my tamales to stand up straight is to place some extra corn husk around the inside of the pot. Sometimes I use foil paper. It's up to you.
Once pot is filled with tamales, add some corn husk to cover the tamales, then cover pot with the lid. Start with high heat until they begin to steam rapidly. Reduce the heat to right below medium, as long as it's steaming at a steady pace. Fill a medium pot with water and heat on low. Set your timer to 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, I carefully pour in more hot water to my steamer pot. Cover once again and continue steaming for another 45 minutes. When ready, carefully pull out one tamal and transfer to a plate. let it cool for 6-7 minutes before you open it. If the husk pulls away easily, the tamales are ready.