Zarela, welcome to the Straight Dope! Your knowledge and expertise in the world of cooking, and of course Mexican cuisine in particular, will be a wonderful asset to our community.
We have a few rules that we’ve developed over the years to cut down on people using the boards for commercial purposes. One of these is to prohibit people from promoting their website or products. Be aware that we don’t want our boards to be used as a promotional vehicle, but please, do share your knowledge with us! (We do, I might mention, accept advertising.)
Again, welcome. I hope you’ll consider sticking around and continuing in the discussion — as well as exploring other areas of our site and finding other topics you’d like to contribute to.
Here are some Houston tacos, featured in today’s Houston Press food blog.
Yes, most of the dishes we’re discussing here are antojitos. Some say Tex-Mex cuisine descended from San Antonio’s chili queens–who sold street food to many hungry Texans.
Pico’s Mex-Mex offers a wonderful food from several areas of Mexico. Here are some favorites. Click through to find Crispy Tacos, under Especialidades Tex-Mex.
Thank you so much for accepting my post I imagined that you would have rules regarding self promotion but as a new member of your community seemingly unknown by some of your members, I felt the need to introduce myself and make my work known to establish my credentials. I won’t mention it again and will take out an ad when we relaunch our website.
I am very interested in what people are interested in and will definitely participate. Thank you for your consideration.
Zarela
One of the classic seasonal dishes of Mexican cooking . Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until August when pomegranates are in season to make them again.
We had them several days ago. Fortunately pomegranates are available here in Guadalajara. Of course the chile en nogada is traditionally served in September, el mes de la patria and the dish and our flag share the same colors. And also the time of year fresh walnuts are available which is where the nogada part of the dish comes from.
Many years ago I approached the California Walnut Board and suggested they have a contest for the best chiles en nogada in the United States. Many discussions later, it was determined that they did not fit into the recipe profile they wanted to promote–the dish could have no more than 25% fat (or something like that) and they were not able to ship fresh walnuts across state lines. So unless you live in a walnut growing area it is never possible to make truly authentic chiles en nogada in the US. I’ve developed a delicious alternative but I don’t know if rules permit me to put a link to the recipe.
zarela: When I was a kid (in San Diego) we hired a woman come in periodically to clean house. She also made dinner. Sometimes (if we were having enchiladas) I’d come home from school to the sound of her slap-slap-slapping homemade tortillas into shape. Boy, were they good! In most Mexican households, are tortillas usually made fresh? Do people slap them from hand to hand to shape them, or have most people switched to using a tortilla press?
I’ve seen bags of masa in the store, and thought I might try making my own tortillas. The bag says ‘just add water’.
If you’re health conscious, you’ll want to use corn tortillas rather than flour. They don’t have the fat content that the flour ones have. They’re pretty much corn and salt, maybe a bit of lime depending on the cook.
Flour tortillas are easier to use, especially if you’re making “lots of ingredients stuffed into a tortilla,” because they are more flexible and sturdy (at least when they’re soft). Corn tortillas, soft or hard, will crack, which makes hand-held food problematic.
Personally, I much prefer the taste of corn tortillas, as flour tortillas are (to me, anyway) much like white bread. I can occasionally find freshly cooked ones that I enjoy, but any packaged variety is like Wonder Bread to me - gummy and totally uninteresting in flavor.
Well, ya gotta have a flour tortilla for a burrito. And they’re handy when you’re out of bread and want a PBJ. But yeah, gotta go with the corn for most things.
Unless you live in Los Angeles, Chicago or other places where there is a high concentration of Mexican people (but curiously only recently in the New York City area) you won’t be able to find fresh corn masa made from nixtamal. The dried corn flour, otherwise known as masaharina ,is perfectly suitable for making corn tortillas for enchiladas.
Some people still shape the tortillas by hand but most use a tortilla press. I don’t remember he slapping together in corn tortillas but absolutely in flour tortillas.
Now, now, I was just introducing myself. A flauta is a rolled taco usually made with a corn tortilla and the commercial ones are better for this than homemade ones because you can usually soften 4-6 by steaming or wrapping them and putting them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. I personally have not ever seen a flauta made with flour tortilla but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist somewhere.
A burrito is always made with flour tortillas and hail from the North where wheat is abundant and people (mainly cowboys) had to travel long distances and they were the perfect portable snack. I agree with the person who said commercial flour tortillas are like white bread and they are fairly easy to make at home. I can post a recipe if you want. By the way, Mexican burritos usually only contain one ingredient not the gloppy ones served in many Tex-Mex chains that add rice, beans, cream, cheese and the kitchen sink.
And regarding lard in flour tortillas, I am a big proponent of HOME-RENDERED lard which is 2/3 unsaturated and has oleic acid the same thing that olive oil has and helps break down cholesterol. Commercial lard and shortening are saturated to make them solid.
Chimichangas are from the state of Sonora and now Arizona and are made with giant very thin flour tortillas that I’ve only seen there and in neighboring Baja California.
What would you call a flauta made with a flour tortilla? Up here (I’m in Northern Washington now) they call them ‘crispitos’, and are common in mini-marts that have hot food.
There’s a place called Tito’s Tacos in Culver City, CA. I used to love going there. Their chili was chunks of beef in a red sauce. Their meat burrito was a large flour tortilla filled with the chili.
Since I’m from California, I do like more than one ingredient in my burritos; typically, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and sour cream (for a beef burrito). But I prefer to have no rice or beans in them. The proprietors of taco trucks (Mexican and Honduran), look at me as if I’m nuts if I don’t want rice and beans with my meat. Anyway, I like the Cal-Mex style with the stuff in it because that’s what I grew up with; but I do miss Tito’s meat-only burritos.
Okay, thats the impression I’ve always had, that a burrito was usually a flour tortilla.
Having said that, I would have sworn most of the enchiladas I’ve eaten were ALSO a flour tortilla. Now, the kind of enchiladas I like are usually swimming in a red (or sometimes green) sauce, as opposed to being more like burrito that has some sauce drizzled over it.
So, whats your take on that?
Or is the difference between a corn and flour tortilla slight enough that I’ve never noticed the difference?
I’ll defer to zarela’s answer, but I’ll throw this out: Corn tortillas and four tortillas taste completely different. I’ve never seen an enchilada that was made with a flour tortilla. A steamed corn tortilla looks a bit white, and is more tender than one that isn’t prepared. Whether you make an enchilada in the traditional way, or bake it in the oven (the most common way I’ve had them), they are effectively ‘steamed’. Cover it with sauce, and one might assume it’s a flour tortilla based on appearance alone. But the flavour is different.
An outstanding thread, all. Zarela: I’d like to welcome you to our little community of oddballs and apologize for the poor social graces of my confederates. There is an initiation, however. . .
If you heat an unfried corn tortilla in a dry skillet for twenty to thirty seconds the tortilla will become pliable, so you can fold or roll it without it cracking. Obviously this won’t work for crisp tortillas, but those are usually in the shape you want when you buy them (although this doesn’t eliminate the problem of a crisp taco shell cracking when you bite into it).
Yes, welcome to the boards Zarela! Your book “Food From My Heart” found its way to a group of us expats living in Budapest and we cooked the heck out of it. We especially enjoyed the tortas ahogadas and the poblano-corn casserole and your doctored-up sour cream (crema agria preparada.) The chorizo and chiapas sausage recipes were also quite popular. Every time one of us made it back to the US, we had to bring back bags of dried chile peppers, masa harina, and cans of chipotles and the like so we continue our exploration of Mexican cookery. Now, it’s gotten so you can find all these ingredients at the specialty stores in Budapest (I’ve even seen canned huitlacoche in one shop!)
Hope you can stay and contribute to our Mexican food knowledge base. While you’re here, do you have any recipes for an al pastor marinade?