I'm pretty sure I won't be buying bags of tortillas anymore. You may have already known how easy these delicious little morsels are but I did not. Today though, I was buying my seasonal sack of white flour and I was going to buy tortillas when I realized I can get two bags of tortillas for the price of one 10kg bag of flour. Health stuff aside, that seemed like glaringly bad economics. But wait, I told myself, maybe they're hard to make. Fortunately, I knew I had an emergency package of tortillas in the freezer. If these ones bombed, I would grab those and carry on with supper plans. Well, supper was just ok but the tortillas rocked. I'll let you in on the secret. Let's start with the flour. Although I have a wonderful assortment of organic, local, whole grains, I opted for white flour. Why? Well, let's just say that the white flour pay off the brain gets makes a homemade experiment much more likely to be accepted. I use unbleached, no additive white flour - but it's not organic, I confess. So, I dumped flour into my food processor (about two cups), added some baking soda (maybe a teaspoon and a half), and a generous pinch of salt. You really need the baking soda or they won't puff up right. I zipped that up for a second and then dropped in some lard. I was thinking of adding something like a tablespoon but definitely added more than that, probably two tablespoons or more. And then I zipped that up. I basically figured if I made a pie crust but not flaky, I'd be close. So, I added cold water a little at a time while zipping until I got a pie crust kind of looking ball. When that happened, I turned it onto a floured board and kneaded for a few minutes to give it a bit of a bread-like quality. I rolled it into a log and broke it into a bunch of pieces (that I should have rolled into a ball but didn't) and rolled it out. I put them one at a time in a hot, dry pan and watched them puff up a bit (sorry, no pic). I gave them just about a minute and then flipped them. They were delicious. So delicious that this is all that's left: But, since it's Spring Break, I'm mostly home and we can make another batch tomorrow. Maybe one white, one half kamut, and one corn. Yum!
Here is the recipe written out halfway logically. In your food processor or a big bowl add 2 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt Mix. 2 Tbsp shortening, butter, or oil (could be melted because you don't need a flaky quality like pie crust). Mix. Add enough water (might as well use warm) to make a stiff ball. Turn out on floured board. Knead for a couple of minutes until smooth and elastic. Roll into a log and break into equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball (I bet that would make them look better), turn out on a floured board and roll until uniform and thin. Place in a hot, dry pan and watch it bubble up. Flip it over when it's started to brown the underside (about a minute but could be more - depends on your heat). Cool and eat. I suspect you could stack them and they'd cool really soft but I didn't try that.
0 Comments
|
AuthorI'm a 40-something writer and smallholder living in the wilds of BC with my family, our small herd of Nigerian Dwarf Goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats. Archives
August 2017
Categories
All
|