A Tale of Two Tortillas
Note: For best results, this recipe should be attempted whilst accompanied by a very large pot of strong coffee and a little Nina Simone in the background. I used Anthology Disc 1.
This morning started out quite optimistically. I had done my research and had a fairly clear idea in my head what I wanted to achieve. I was going to attempt a small batch of corn tortillas, followed by a small batch of flour tortillas, just to see which turned out best for use in tonight’s quesadillas. Since I had done so well with the chapatis, I was feeling a bit cocky. Yeah, no.
Let me tell you about what you shouldn’t do first.
I had bought a small 4.5rmb bag of corn flour the other day and, although I knew very well that corn flour is not masa harina, I thought I’d give it a shot. I used this recipe, which I’m sure would have worked fabulously had I been using the right kind of flour.
I made up a small batch, molded a few dough balls and used my sauce pans as an improvised tortilla press. This is what I got.
I’m not even going to show you what it looked like in the wok. It actually tasted okay, albeit plain and polenta‘ish, and probably would have been nice sauteed with some chopped onion and garlic and chilies and served with a fried egg. It just wasn’t a tortilla.
The second attempt was much better. Most flour tortilla recipes call for shortening or lard, neither of which I have access to, so I broke one of my personal cardinal rules and visited a low-fat recipe page. I happen to be a big fan of things made with a reasonable amount of butter and olive oil. This recipe calls for some oil, so I’ll overlook the fact that it uses low fat as a descriptor.
Low Fat Homemade Flour Tortillas
The process is very simple: combine the dry ingredients and then stir in the liquids, adjusting the water as necessary. I’d used 1 cup of rye flour and 3 cups of regular flour in my batch, which really seemed to suck up the water so I ended up adding another 1/4 cup when I was kneading. This is what the dough looked like:
After you’ve got everything mixed together, dump the mix onto a clean counter or decent sized cutting board and knead it 10-15 times. Mine kept breaking apart and I had to keep adding dribbles of water to hold it together. I ended up kneading it 20 or so times. I think this may have been due to using the rye flour.
Now, this recipe says it makes 18 tortillas but, whoa, they must be those tiny taco-sized tortillas as I divided mine up into just 16 rather small balls. In the end, I mashed two balls together to make bigger balls and they were reasonably quesadilla-sized.
For the flour tortillas, I used my crock pot clay insert as the top half of the tortilla press as it was heavier than my sauce pan. Just put a dough ball in the centre of the bottom of a plastic wrapped pan or pot and press down with another plastic wrapped pot. I found that the resulting flat disc still wasn’t thin enough to be a proper tortilla but it got me most of the way there. I finished it off with a rolling pin, making it bigger and flatter.
I made a trial tortilla (the rest will be done up tonight), cooked in an ungreased wok on medium low for about 30 seconds on each side.
Although we’ll be making quesadillas with the rest of the tortillas tonight, I thought I’d tell you what I did with mine for breakfast.
I had a packet of spicy sausages (the kind in skins, that are rather mooshy inside, bought from butcher, like an undried chorizo) in the fridge so I cut one up into little pieces and sauteed it in the wok until it vaguely resembled the crumbled chorizo they put in street tacos in Mexico. I added the last quarter of a leftover purple onion, diced, and a chopped up tiny red chili (the scary kind) and cooked the whole mess together until the onion was soft. I shoved those to the side of the wok and threw in an egg and fried it.
This was breakfast and it was f*cking awesome:
11 Comments
Amanda
Cool! Glad you liked the recipe. Funny you mention the low-fat part. If you happened to look at the rest of my blog, there’s not a whole lotta low fat stuff there haha! Have a great day and thanks for the mention 😉
Amanda recently posted..Homemade Chicken Nuggets
MaryAnne
I’ll admit I have yet to look at the rest of the blog as I was specifically hunting for tortilla recipes… but now I think I ought to, especially as it isn’t low fat! The tortillas are awesome. We had quesadillas for dinner and they turned out beautifully. Thank you! I really was worried I’d have to hunt down shortening… eep! Not an easy feat in China!
Michi
Mmmmmmm!!! You can bet I’ll give this a try!! My sister-in-law knows how much I’ve missed my mom’s homemade tortillas, so she bought me corn flour (you’re right, NOT masa harina) so I’ve only been able to make corn bread from it. However, thanks to this recipe you’ve found, I’ll go ahead and give it another shot. 😉 Thanks!!
Michi recently posted..Estofado à la Michi
MaryAnne
The masa harina is processed with quick lime or some such, isn’t it? I’m thinking I may have to veer into the polenta/cornbread/johnnycake sphere with what I’ve got here. And really, at 4.5 rmb a bag, it’s not a huge risk if I mess up (about 56 US cents?) Am thinking of attempting pupusas too, and stuffing them with my home made ricotta, extra drained….
Nicola @ unhip squirrel
Yumm.. I love homemade tortillas! The ones you get at the store are so full of crap. Unfortunately, as I’m not superwoman, I usually end up buying them anyways… perhaps sometime in the next few weekends I’ll make the homemade kind again. I’m inspired 🙂
Nicola @ unhip squirrel recently posted..pulled pork with bourbon orange coriander barbecue sauce
MaryAnne
I love them too, especially since the only ones our local import store carries are Old El Paso, white and doughy and about $10 for ten tortillas! The batch I made yesterday has pretty much served 5 out of my past 6 meals (seriously! very versatile!) and I still have one left. Yum!
Kate McLeod
What a great post! My fiancée and I have been experimenting with different tortilla recipes. We’re starting with flour, but it won’t be long before we dip into some corn recipes as well. This definitely gave me a smile and the impetus to keep working at it. (We’re having a hard time finding the right kind of flour here in the UK. Any ideas?)
Check out my blog if you’re ever bored and would like a smile. http://ukate.wordpress.com/
MaryAnne
Hello and welcome to my new experiment! Are you looking for the corn flour that’s used in the corn tortillas in Mexico? From what I gather, it’s been treated somehow to make it totally not the same as regular corn flour, at least when it comes to making bread products! I googled it before but I’m still not 100% sure about the process– http://cookingquestions.myrecipes.com/2010/07/what-is-masa-harina-and-is-there-anything-i-can-substitute.html I’m thinking of trying a part wheat/part corn flour tortilla. Will keep you updated!
Sally
Mmm…. that breakfast DOES look amazing. And I’m loving your apron.
Sally recently posted..On What 9-11 Taught Me About Home
christa
oh how i long for tiny red chilis (the scary kind)!! i’m forever telling people about them here in canadia, but it’s just not the same as being able to make them EAT them…. nice work with the wok, lady! it truly is amazing what one determined chef can accomplish with a wok, a toaster oven and some imagination isn’t it? 🙂
MaryAnne
Can’t you get the scary chilies in Canadia? I’m never sure what’s available where, anymore. I love them- they make up a huge part of my daily nutritional intake (that and garlic and cheese, when possible). And yeah, you can do a lot with a wok! Those first-worlders with their modern, fully equipped kitchens don’t know how good they’ve got it! 😉