(video below)
When the thought of making my own flour tortillas at home cropped up after watching Rick Bayless tackle them during a quesadilla video, even I had to question the wisdom and logic of the idea. Admittedly I’ve become a budget-obsessed cook of late but it’s an investment of hours of labour, right? Who has the time or motivation to make them when they’re only $3.50 for a packet of ten in the market? Boy was I wrong. Cost, convenience, and most importantly flavour can all be improved with homemade versions.
Let’s get price out of the way first. Thirty-five cents a piece doesn’t sound so bad but when you remember how many of the blasted things you eat, at least in my house, it adds up fast. I’ve found a new online recipe cost calculator called CookKeepBook* that cranks out a cost for the homemade versions of… six cents each. Yes, one fifth the price! The tortilla factories are making a killing even when you add in the price of the bag and shipping I suspect.
* A fine application made by some of my fellow Canadians. I’ll do a full post about their project later but you can check them out now. They have a free version which works a treat for you to calculate recipe costs at will.
Taste is of course paramount to my mind and originally I thought how badly could the food industry mess up flour, salt, shortening, and water? Sounds like a place where standardization could really be a bonus. Not so. Those pale, uninteresting, perfectly-shaped bagged versions that once populated my pantry have been banished forever. The taste you get hot off the griddle with hints of char and speckled browned bits in the image of ancient Aztec gods beats the factory fare hands down. Even if the commercial bakeries were to set their ovens to add some colour they’d never get them to your kitchen as fast as making your own and it’s that freshness that elevates your tacos and wraps to new heights.
So that leaves convenience. How in the world can you make enough to satisfy your cravings without spending hours covered in flour and investing in a tortilla press? I didn’t think it was possible either and honestly after my first attempt, which took hours, was about to revert to the commercial versions. Then on my second batch, it went faster. And on the third, quicker still. I’m not nearly as adept as Mexican grandmothers yet, not by far, but using the food processor and a rolling pin I can get an assembly line going to pump out a batch of eight in about twenty minutes excluding the dough resting time. All I can say is practice, practice, practice. It will soon become easier and faster than your first attempts would lead you to believe.
On the equipment front you could certainly use a manual pastry cutter or even just a fork to work in the fats but since the processor is right there on the counter, machine pulsing was much faster. I actually prefer a short bit of 2″ dowel for rolling over my full-length pins here since the target diameters are so much smaller than say, pie crusts. Of course if you already own a tortilla press, you might have better luck lugging it out onto the counter than I did. I found my model of press, which is really designed for corn masa tortillas rather than flour, wasn’t as good at getting them thin enough but that could easily be the model I own. My next kitchen hacking project might aim to improve that gizmo. With practice, the manual method using a good old-fashioned rolling pin for a stack of eight is probably just as fast as setting up the press.
Most experts in the field point you towards using a heavy cast iron griddle or pan. I tried those with my first batches and got a few too many hot spots. If I was making six dozen I’d have time to get the temperature on cast iron just right but for a quick eight-pack, I reverted to my trusty heavy gauge non-stick pan. The danger of course with non-stick comes at high temperatures where molecular breakdown of the coating and toxic off-gasses start to occur but if you keep tortillas in the pan non-stop*, the heat has somewhere to go and remains manageable. Still, I never went over medium-high settings and watched it closely with my thermometers to never let it get over the danger mark of 260C (500F) surface temperature. I wouldn’t try this in particularly cheap non-stick pans and if that’s all that you have in your arsenal, spend the $20 and invest in cast iron. It will work perfectly but take a bit more finesse with the heat control knob.
* Be incredibly careful preheating an empty non-stick pan. Never use ‘high’ heat and watch it closely. You have been warned tortilla warriors.
Years ago I swore off factory-made bagels for all these same reasons and they can really be a hassle to make. Now that I realize how quick and easy flour tortillas are with practice, they’re getting added to the list of things to make at home.
(Experiments with popular additions to the dough like spinach and sun-dried tomato continue. I’ll update here with successes and failures as they materialize)
Flour Tortillas At Home
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
190 – 210 ml very warm water (varies with daily humidity)
350g all-purpose flour
25 g vegetable shortening
25 g freshly rendered lard (or substitute more shortening for vegetarians)
Yield: Eight tortillas, roughly 7″ diameter, recipe can be safely doubled or tripled. Recruit some friends for a taco making party.
Dissolve the salt completely in the warm water. In a food processor fitted with the standard blade, add the flour and fats and pulse until a coarse crumb texture is attained. Add the salt water all at once and pulse until the dough comes together. Remove to a floured surface and collect into a ball. No kneading is necessary. Divide into eight equal portions and form each ball by rolling on your work surface under a cupped hand to tighten. Set aside well covered with plastic film to rest for at least thirty minutes and up to several hours in advance.
Roll each ball on a lightly floured surface to an four-inch diameter then set aside to rest briefly as you begin to work other dough balls. After several minutes return to each and roll to a final diameter of roughly seven inches. Some spring back and shrinkage will occur as you take each to a dry pan or griddle heated to 230C (445F) so roll slightly larger than your final desired size. Fry each tortilla until “puffed” and brown spots begin to appear, anywhere from 60-90 seconds depending on your gear. Flip and cook briefly on the other side until completely puffed all over. Remove to a towel-lined plate or basket and cover to hold in the residual steam for at least twenty minutes. Don’t skip this towel-covering step if you want soft, pliable tortillas.
Continue rolling and frying each tortilla in succession and stacking them on the previous, recovering with the towel each time so that the steam is contained. Store in sealed plastic bags when completely cool for up to three days. Fiesta!
