We have a family member who is gluten free and we often make our own corn tortillas at home. It’s pretty easy to make a pretty good corn tortilla by just following the recipe on the bag of masa. However, my tortillas are never as good as the ones made fresh in a restaurant. If you’ve lived in the southwest, you know what a great corn tortilla is like. It’s light, fluffy, and a bit stretchy, almost how a flour one would be.
While my tortillas are good, they don’t quite have that same doughy texture and aren’t as flaky as the ones in the restaurant. Is there some secret ingredient or technique to take them to the next level?
Is your masa just corn flour, or a corn flour baking mix? The mixes contain baking powder and sometimes fat that will change the result. Do you have a tortilla press? I’ve never had them come out as a well the ones made by the pros, but with some tweaking with the right amount of water added they get close. For all the effort involved I just use store bought.
I use Maseca, which is just corn flour treated with Lime. I do have a tortilla press, but I’ve been using a glass pie pan instead to flatten them. I can get a thinner, more uniform tortilla this way.
I’ve tried adding more water, but the dough gets sticky and harder to work with. But maybe that’s how it should be?
You need to find a Mexican grocery or tortillaria that sells freshly ground masa. Masa harina is the dried version that you are using, and it makes a good tortilla. However, the best is made from fresh masa, which requires no other ingredients. Just form it into a ball and smash it with a tortilla press.
I’m with you - I make 'em with Maseca as well, and though they’re miles better than what I can buy in a grocery store, they’re nowhere near as good as the ones at a good Mexican restaurant. I assume the difference is the Maseca versus fresh masa, which unfortunately is not available in my area.
I’m also going to try this recipe next time; it includes some fat, which I’ve never used before (always just masa and water). I’m wondering if that will make it big difference.
I’m glad you asked this. I’ve been having trouble getting a great corn tortilla, too. My tortilla press doesn’t get them thin enough, and they come out sort of dry. They taste pretty good, but not excellent. I’ll try the pie plate thing and adding lard.
With a glass pie pan, you can get a perfectly round, thin tortilla. Since you can see it while you’re squishing it, you can apply pressure exactly where it needs to be. The tortilla press I have doesn’t press down evenly, resulting in one end thinner than the other.
Some of the Mexican grocery stores around here have fresh ground masa. I’ll give that a try.
Again, if you start the ball of dough closer to the hinge, and not in the very middle, I think you’ll find that your tortillas will turn out evenly pressed.
re: tortilla thinness & presses. The press matters. I had one of these light aluminum presses for a while, and it really produced bad tortillas. Hard to get them thin enough, and generally a pain in the ass to use.
Then I upgraded to a cast-iron one like this, and everything got better.
Apparently, this is the one Cook’s Illustrated/ATK recommends. That looks similar to the ones I see used in my neighborhood at the taquerias that make tortillas by hand. They also like the much less expensive cast iron one that Athena linked to.