Making flour and corn tortillas - Recipes

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I don't think I've ever met a bread I didn't like, but tortillas are a favorite

here. You can make them by hand, use a tortilla press or roll them out. It

doesn't take long to cook on a good, hot griddle (my old cast iron griddle is

perfect for tortillas) and are pretty hard to mess up. You can find manual

tortilla presses on eBay for under $10 (and over $10) and if you like tortillas,

they are worth buying.

 

Here's a basic flour tortilla recipe but I usually don't measure the

ingredients. The young woman in the video uses about what I use, so here's her

recipe. It's pretty automatic after almost 50 years of making them.

 

 

Basic Flour Tortilla

3 1/2 cups white flour (about 4 of my hand fulls)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder (I grab a couple of good pinches)

1 teaspoon salt (poured into my palm so it is about one teaspoon)

6 to 7 tablespoons vegetable shortening (my espresso cup with the broken handle)

1 cup hot water (it may take more or less; add a little at a time. Some days the

flour needs more hot water, some days less)

 

Put flour into bowl. Add salt, mix together. Put 6 to 7 tablespoons solid

vegetable shortening into the flour, cut in until the size of corn meal. Add hot

water (just about boiling), a little at a time, stirring it in. Using your

hands, mix the flour and water together, then turn it out onto the counter and

lightly knead everything together. You aren't kneading as you would in making

yeast bread, because it would form gluten and make the tortilla tough.

 

Cover the dough and let it sit for 15 minutes to rest the gluten. (One website I

have added at the end doesn't show the dough resting, but I've done it this way

for a long time and still think it is better.) Separate the dough into even size

balls of about 4 tablespoons dough per ball.

 

Roll each ball out into circles. You don't need to flour the counter to roll the

dough out. Or use a tortilla press OR use your hands and go patta patta patta

pat till it is thin and round. If using the press, put a piece of waxed paper or

plastic wrap on the press, the ball of dough on that and another piece of waxed

paper on top, press. I like using the press with waxed paper because I can just

pull the entire waxed paper and tortilla off and lay aside and make others

before starting to cook. Just peel the waxed paper or plastic wrap off before

baking on griddle.

 

Get griddle (no stick or well seasoned cast iron hot. Place tortilla on griddle,

cook on one side, flip, cook on other side, put in basket or plate, cover with

clean towel till you have the rest of the tortillas made. They soften as they

sit, if you can keep the family from grabbing them hot off the griddle.

 

Makes about 24 ish. Some people don't add baking powder. Sometimes I don't, most

times I do. To freeze, tear off a couple dozen pieces of waxed paper, stack

cooked tortillas with waxed paper between each tortilla, I like using the seal a

meal (with the waxed paper between tortillas in stacks of 6 (guess you could do

more, I do stacks of 6 because its about one person worth, you can also put

stacks of about 12 in gallon sized zip lock freezer bags, burping out the air,

sealing and freezing.

 

 

Corn Tortillas

The following link contains photos and is pretty much exactly how I make my corn

tortillas but my press is different and it doesn't show how to do the patta

patta patta pat way of making them. I'll continue looking for a site that shows

how, but really, if you just start out with a ball of dough, smush it into a

flatter round, then start patta patting, you'll eventually end up with a nice,

round, flat tortilla. Kind of like play dough.

http://elise.com/recipes/archives/004141how_to_make_corn_tortillas.php

 

Corn Tortilla Recipe (pretty close to mine)

2 cups masa harina (no, no, no, no, NOT corn meal. Masa Harina flour is corn

flour treated with lime)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda (can omit, I like using it in my tortillas)

1/2 teaspoon salt (not in the recipe in the photos, I use it)

1 1/2 to 2 cups hot water (some days the masa harina absorbs more water)

1 to 2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening (like Crisco - some recipes call

for shortening, some don't. I use it sometimes, sometimes I don't.)

 

Mix dry ingredients together, add water, gently knead together, roll, bake on

hot griddle.

 

Here's another site with a recipe closer to mine. It also shows the tortilla

press I have.

http://www.cooking-mexican-recipes.com/corn-tortilla-recipe.html

The learning curve for learning how to make tortillas isn't that long or hard

and once you have home made, it will be awfully hard to go back to the

chemical-laden things in the grocery store.

 

Think I'll go make some tortillas. Hugs, Jeanne in GA

 

PS: Since the Rich Text editor often adds extra characters or drops words, I try

to do my e-mail in plain text. Unfortunately that means hyperlinks aren't

clickable. Just copy and paste the link into your browser. If the link breaks,

Google corn tortilla recipe and flour tortilla recipe.