I sometimes make flour tortillas but haven’t had a good corn one in ages.
The special trick ™ to making flour tortillas that aren’t rock hard is to use boiling water instead of hot water. Sure it hurts your hands when you are kneading the dough but the softness of it sure makes it worthwhile.
The basic recipe:
Flour (3ish cups)
Salt (a tablespoon or so)
Baking Powder (a tablespoon or so)
Lard (for flavorin’ you can substitute vegetable shortning. Roughly 4 tablespoons)
1 cup of boiling hot water
Stir in a large mixing bowl until it forms a large dough ball. Then knead it for about 10 minutes. You may have to add more water or flour depending on how wet or dry it is. It should have a slightly dryer consistency than bread dough.
Pinch of dough in roughly lime sized balls and roll the dough flat with a rolling pin. Cook the tortilla in a skillet on high for roughly 2 minutes on one side and 1 minute on the other. The tortillas should have some minor pockets of air bubbles and freckles (light brown spots wtih a few that may be black).
I just cook those on a dry skillet. Since they are dryer they shouldn’t stick. If they do stick for some reason by the time they are ready to flip they shouldn’t anymore.
Oh, jjiimm, I see you live in Ireland. Good luck. I don’t know if you could find any there. There isn’t any in Budapest. However, my friend found masa harina in specialty story in La Caruna, Spain, so it can be found in Europe. Anyhow, you should have a better chance of finding it than I. Masa is basically corn that’s been slaked with lime. Masa harina (masa flour) is a dried version of this. Unless you live near a tortilla factory (highly unlikely) you’re not going to find any fresh masa around. Masa harina may be possible, though.
You need masa harina; it behaves totally differently than corn flour or cornmeal. The recipe is usually on the packaging; I think it’s about 2 parts masa harina/1 part water, with about a teaspoon of salt for every cup of masa harina. Mix well, let sit for 10 min., press in tortilla press or with the back of a plate, and fry on dry, nonstick skillet.
The lime refers to calcium oxide (like the deposits you might get in your bathroom), not the fruit. Masa is basically made by taking corn kernels and boiling them in powdered lime, washing it, grinding it, and then adding enough water to make a sort of dough. Masa harina is some powdered version of this. Masa is also the dough you find around tamales.
If you’re really ambitious you could make your own home-made masas. Actually, this almost sounds like a project for me. (I love these sorts of things! I gots me some corned beef corning away in a corner of a fridge and some homemade Moroccan preserved lemons preserving away in the cupboard. Now where to find some slaked lime? Pharmacy?)
Hmmm I think the board has eaten 25% of my posts now.
Anyway, I tried making corn tortilllas last night. The dough wouldn’t set up like I expected it to do. It was very crumbly overall but I could still form them into tortillas with my handy dandy tortilla press. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without it since they were minorly sticky.
Anyway, they weren’t nearly as flexible as my regular tortillas. I think if I did the secret trick ™ for the flour tortillas using boiling water that they would set even worse than they already were and possibly fall apart even more upon touching them.
What is the dough supposed to feel like when you are done? When I make flour tortillas the texture of the dough is similar to playdough but much more velvety.
This is more info about tortillas than most people would ever want to know, but I work with some of the local tortilla factories on occasion and its a pretty cool process.
First they cook the corn (maize to most) in water and calcium hydroxide for 12 hours or so and then wash it off. Having good quality corn is critical, and if a lot of the kernels are broken then then it won’t be good. They convert it into the dough. In most of the local places they don’t go through an extensive drying process to make dry masa flour. They go straight from the cook/soak tanks (corn) to the mixer/grinders (masa), and from there straight into the tortilla machines. Its a somewhat water intensive process and the calcium hydroxide and corn solids in the effluent tended to cause fits with the local waste water agencies. The flour tortilla making process is much cleaner and easier.
There are two main types of tortilla machines, specifically extrusion or stamping. The stamping ones make balls of dough and them roll them into a press. The extrusion ones make a sheet of dough and then run it through a cutting die. The extruded ones are used more for corn and less for flour, and tend to be rounder.
The standard way to make corn chips is to cut cooked corn tortillas into 6 segments each and then fry them. The best corn chips are made from fresh barely cooked tortillas, so if a resataurant makes tortillas on-site then they usually have really good fresh tortilla chips. Some of the local tortilla companies are working on pre-cut ready- to-fry tortilla chip blanks which will really improve chip quality in a lot of places. I help with the refrigeration process to cool or freeze the uncooked product for distribution. I get big bags for fresh tortillas to bring home. Good stuff.
Oh well.