How to Make Homemade Tortillas

I have been really obsessed with Mexican food of late. I can’t say why. It just tastes good! Chorizo and super green guacamole, tacos…but its homemade tortillas that are knocking the socks off of anything else. And their ease has fueled my obsession.

A couple of things to know about corn tortillas before you make them at home, or buy them...

· Corn tortillas must be made with Masa Harina, Spanish for ‘dough flour’. Masa Harina is not just cornmeal, you CANNOT substitute plain ole’ cornmeal. Dried corn kernels are cooked and then soaked in lime water. Then the kernels are dried and ground to make masa. Check out this link, it is really interesting. I am pretty adventurous, but maybe not enough to make my own masa.

· The vast majority of corn grown in North America is Genetically Modified. And we avoid GMO’s at all costs. I bought Bob’s Red Mill Masa Harina because they are a great organic resource and in the FAQ section of their website they state that they do not use any GMO seeds. But when I pulled out the package today, it did not say organic!! Rats! But then thankfully, I saw online that the process of soaking the corn in limewater is not allowable under organic guidelines and so BRM cannot use the term ‘organic’ on the labeling. So if you have been searching trying to find organic masa in vain, now you know why.

· The masa I have been buying is kind of pricey, and I only see it sold in 1 lb 8 ounce bags (24 ounces). I have searched for 5 or 10 pound bags. But it is probably better that it comes smaller. Smaller packages stay fresh and turn over more often. You can buy Bob’s Red Mill Masa Harina online in 4-packs. But BRM not package it in larger sizes. I did however find this very interesting family farm in Idaho. Some of their various flour prices are the same as my local Cayuga Pure Organics and some are lower. It is interesting though. I am not convinced that buying online gets you anything except a shipping bill. That is, if you already have a good local source.

· One 24 oz package is about enough to make 2-3 batches of tortillas. The below recipe is for one batch. But in my pictures I am making a double batch. My double batch made slightly less than 40 tortillas that are 4-5 inches in diameter. Your number per batch can change depending on how large you make them. And of course wetter dough will make thinner tortillas because the press will press them out more.

· I really recommend a tortilla press. The effort required to roll out 20 tortillas with a rolling pin might defeat the purpose. The dough can be slightly sticky, not like gluteny wheat dough. Presses are cheap. Mine is cast iron and was only about $15.

· I used a cast iron griddle to fry my tortillas. Any cast iron pan would do. Although much is written about reheating tortillas directly on your gas burner without using a pan, that is only for reheating. Cooking them is different. The tortillas are a soft and mashable dough before being cooked. They need to be cooked on some kind of pan. I have a feeling that any skillet would do. Just be careful to not use too much fat and deep fry them, you may end up with something crispy, more like a tostada.

Place 2 cups of masa harina into a large mixing bowl. Add ½ teaspoon of salt. Mix in 1 and ½ cups of water. If the dough feels too dry, add up to ½ cup more. If your dough feels too wet, add in more masa and mix it in with your hands. My dough was a little too wet today. I think I might have put in an extra cup of water in making my double batch. I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention. But I fixed it before I started cooking.
Let the dough rest for an hour with a towel covering. When you are ready, form a small ball. I haven’t bought wax paper in years, so I used a plastic baggie (that I use over and over again with my press). I don’t have anything against wax paper. I just haven’t bought any in a while. Place the ball in the tortilla press and…well…press.

The dough needs to be handled delicately. The tortillas can fall apart or get stuck to the paper or plastic you are using. Expect that the first few will be terrible looking. Ball them up and try again a few times to get the hang of it.

On your griddle, with the heat on medium, put a little lard. You could use coconut oil too. But lard is so good. And I just rendered some this week! Use just enough fat to keep the tortillas from sticking and burning.

My griddle fits three tortillas. Let them fry on for a few minutes on each side. I noticed mine started to look dryer and started to curl at the edges when they were ready to be flipped. When both sides have cooled, transfer them to a plate. I tend to wrap them up in a clean dish towel to keep them warm. That is perfect is you are making tortillas right before they are to be eaten. But also I think it softens and finishes them even if you will be freezing them.

I froze mine in 2 packages of 10 each and one container for this week to make something. And of course I ate 3 while cooking straight off the pan with butter and honey. Ridic. What I haven’t decided is what I will do with my tortillas, enchiladas? Chilaquiles? Tacos? The possibilities are endless. Seriously, try this. Regular tacos suck in comparison. I might never be able to eat store bought tortillas again.

This post is part of Sustainable Eat and GNOWFLINS Simple Lives Thursday

Meatless Monday: Avacado and Kale Gorditas

I have noticed a new trend on the Internet, and many folks are talking about it—Meatless Mondays. If I understand properly it began as a way to highlight the unsustainability of the modern meat system. So much conventional grain is grown using pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that run off into local water supplies contaminating groundwater. The animals themselves should not be eating corn and so their tummies bloat, they gain weight faster. Their digestive systems struggle to digest the corn making the cows prone to disease. The reasons I eat grass fed meat is because it is higher in omega threes, lower in fat, higher in Vitamins A, D and E. But it is also because the animals are more ethically treated. Pastured animals have more room to move, more freedom. They eat grass which is what their tummies have evolved to eat.

But most meat is not grass fed, and so you have a modern industrial meat industry that is a threat to our environment. I fortunately have a source of local (my farmer is in VT) grass fed meats. But if I didn’t, I would consider limiting my meat consumption. And I think that is a conclusion many people come to in the natural course of this whole ecological, ethical eating adventure. But conversely, one must also consider that most people need protein for optimal body function. Many many of the vegetarians I have known (especially the very young and the newbies) eat too many carbs, both refined and of the potato variety, in moving away from meat. I know that the vegetarian diet can be more than properly filled with proteins by incorporating beans, dark leafy greens and dairy (and possibly eggs and fish if that is the way you swing). But lots of people eliminate meat from their diet for reasons of principle or ethics without adding in other protein sources. This is a case of one’s heart being in the right place, but one’s head not. Do you need protein? Yes I firmly believe so. And if you agree with nutritional typing you also believe that many people can’t function properly without it.

Yet in my reading, such as Nourishing Traditions, it becomes obvious that humans have evolved to eat meat. Evidenced in part of our short (and single stomached) digestive track. So that makes the decision to eat meat, or not eat meat, all the more complicated. It is a situation of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. That being said, I know I don’t need to eat 8 or 10 ounces of meat in a day. I get lots of other protein foods. So I have made it a goal to have a meatless dinner once a week. I have been trying to incorporate beans into one dinner a week. And I would say I am successful every other week. But the popularity of Meatless Monday posts among food bloggers might motivate me to make more of an effort every week. Oh and did I mention that neither of the kids are eating beans right now?

Last week I got an inspiration to buy myself a little toy. A tortilla press. We don’t eat a lot of tortillas. Not because we are boycotting them, but just because we…well…don’t. But I love authentic Mexican food. It is the one ethnic food that I could eat every day and never get sick of it. The cast iron press was relatively cheap $20 (you can get them cheaper I am sure, this one is cast iron). And though it does only one thing, I mean, it is a really great thing!! The heartache it saves is more than compensates the $20 I spent.

I was itching to use the press, so I settled on Gorditas. Mostly because the recipe was sitting right there on the back of the masa harina I had gotten from Bob’s Red Mill. And for some reason I was intimidated to make tortillas (who knows why). ‘Gorditas’ means ‘little fatties’, and that’s because they are rather like a tortilla that hasn’t been pressed out all the way. The recipe for the dough as it read on my package is as follows:

Gorditas
3 ½ cups of Masa Harina (fine corn flour that is ground after the corn is first soaked in lime and water)
2 ¼ cups warm water
¼ cup of vegetable shortening (Though I could not in good conscious recommend vegetable shortening. Use coconut oil during Meatless Mondays and lard every other day of the week)
1 teaspoon of salt
½ cup of flour (I used whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
Oil for the griddle
Heat Griddle to medium low (don’t do it too high, they will burn…uhhh…just trust me on that one). Mix Masa and water. Add in shortening, salt, flour and baking powder. Knead until well blended and masa forms a ball. Wet hands. Shape dough into 1 ½ to 2 inch balls. Cover to prevent drying. With moistened hands flatten into ¼ inch patties forming a 3 to 4 inch circle. Cook on a hot griddle in a little oil 6 to 8 minutes on each side or until lightly browned. Remove and when cool enough, slice each gordita about halfway through forming a pocket (I see it more like a clam shell. Then stuff with anything slightly taco like. Makes 12-14 servings.

A couple of notes, I just halved the dough and made 7 balls out of each half to ensure they were all about the same. And when I used the tortilla press I put the dough in between a cut up plastic Ziploc bag in order to keep the dough from sticking to the press. On a side note, it was a bag had already used. I didn't destroy a bag for this purpose. I always encourage multi-tasking your plastics.

I found that it was best if I pressed gently on one side and then flipped the cake around to gently flatten out the other side. Otherwise I either ended up pressing too hard and making tortillas or I ended up with a lopsided ramp looking thing that was too think on one side and too thick on the other. Also I didn’t use that much oil for frying them. But if I had to do it all over again, I would have actually pan fried them in a greater amount of oil.

When I mentioned my gordita experiment to my friend WKG, who is my go to expert on all Mexican food queries, she mentioned that her mother and grandmother always deep fried their gorditas in lard. And that explained the squeals of delight that she gave me when I told her that I had made gorditas.

In honor of Meatless Mondays I stuffed my gorditas with a soft cheese Hawthorne Valley calls Bianco (it is like cow’s milk chevre), slices of avocado and chopped lacinto kale. Oh, and some Frank’s Red Hot. Actually a lot of Frank’s Red Hot. Delish. As far as protein, I served all this up with some crock pot black beans stewed with onion and garlic and cumin. Ridiculous.

And the kids? Well they didn’t go hungry. Though they didn’t give the meal its proper dues. They nibbled on some of the gorditas, but both had had too many afternoon snacks (not my fault I swear!!!) and so, this dinner was a big fat fail on the child frontier. And have I mentioned that the kids don’t eat beans? Such a travesty. DH and I were thrilled with them. It was kind of like eating a cross between a taco and a tamale. And the best thing? It was like a cross between a taco and a tamale!