Homemade tortillas

I am desperately trying (and failing) to finish my prospectus, and write a paper for a conference in January.  Instead of doing that, I'm surfing the internet, reading recipe blogs.  In particular, I like baking and books, though I suspect that I'll never be as proficient with breads and cakes as Ariela.  I can bake two things, basically.  One is homemade thin pizza crust, which I'll write about some other day of procrastination.  The other is homemade tortillas.

I had no idea that it was so ridiculously easy to make tortillas until Robert Rodriguez did it before my eyes on the Sin City DVD .  Now, I never go back, unless I'm too lazy.  They're so much better than any store bought tortillas, and they take about 40 minutes from "Hey, I'd like to eat some tortillas" to "Hey, I'm eating tortillas".  About 20 of that is rising time.  Yeah, it's that easy.  This recipe may look long, but that's just my verbosity--it's really all of about 6 steps.

There are five ingredients.  Yup...five, and you've probably got them around the house. Mix the first four together in a big bowl:

2 cups flour
1/2-teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup butter (or lard)

I use butter myself.  I tried lard and found I didn't like it as much--not sure why.  Anyway, mix them until you get something that looks like corn meal.

Add the fifth ingredient, which is about 3/4 of a cup of water, and keep 1/4 cup on hand.  Mix it together with a mixer on low, or a wooden spoon (my personal choice) for about a minute or so.  It should get sticky, but not sloppy.  If it's still breaking into clumps too much, add water a few drops at a time (I'm only barely kidding.  Seriously, spare the water--you're probably using too much).

Pull small clumps out with your fingers.  Put these chunks on a floured surface, and when they're all out and in a big pile, smush them together and start kneading--basically you want to hold the ball of dough and push in with your thumbs, rolling it over and over.  You can add a little flour to the surface if you need to, but the idea is to get dough that is smooth and elastic.

Once you get that, begin taking small golf-ball sized pieces off, roll them into balls, and arrange them on a plate.  Try not to let them touch.  You should get about 10-12 out of this amount.  Cover them with a damp (not wet) paper towel and let them sit out for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, get out a rolling pin, a relatively large skillet (say, wider than 10 inches in diameter, or thereabouts), a plate for your finished product, and find some surface to roll on.  I use a large flat chopping board.  Dust the surface lightly with flour.  Put the skillet on to high heat. Also, unless you want to just eat tortillas, now would be a good time to prepare filling.  Not that you couldn't just eat the tortillas--they're that good.

Take the paper towel off the dough balls.  They'll be damp (obviously) and slightly larger from rising.  Take one of the balls and flatten it with your thumbs to just slightly larger than a soup-can lid.  Once that's done, put it on the floured surface, roll it once, then flip it over, and roll it until it's about 10 inches in diameter (see why you needed a large skillet?) Flip it one more time, then drop it onto the skillet.

Let it cook there for about 10 seconds (yes, seconds), then use a spatula and flip it over.  Leave it sit for about 1-1 1/2 minutes, or until you start to see large bubbles.  Then flip again, press the edges with your spatula, and take that sucker off.  Do this with the rest, and add palm-fulls of flour if you get low or the uncooked tortillas start to stick to your pin or surface.  Stack em on your plate or in a tortilla warmer.  When you're done, you've got hot, delicious tortillas for any occasion!  Enjoy!

Comments

[Daniel Andrlik]

Yum! I'll have to give these a try.