Homemade Tortillas

When I announced on Twitter last night that I was going to try making my own tortillas one of the responses I received was that once I had them, I’d never go back to the packaged version.

Well, it only took one bite to prove that statement true.

I was tortilla deprived while we were in Brazil. When I visited the US I would always bring back a couple packages in my suitcase and we’d go through them in a week or two. Because this was my only option I stuck with the packaged version, but I knew I wanted to make my own.

So when my brothers asked me what I wanted for my belated birthday gift during my visit home over the holidays, I immediately said a tortilla press. There was some confusion and I had to clarify that is was not a quesadilla maker I was speaking of. Once we established that the contraption wasn’t to actually cook the tortillas, but to press them, we began looking for one at stores each time we were out finding none.

Finally at about 8:00 pm the night before I left to come back to Kentucky my brothers (two of the three) announced that they were going out for a bit. Considering strange ideas aren’t all that uncommon in my family, no one paid any attention.

About an hour later they walked in the door announcing they were home, and laid a bag on the kitchen counter with a clanging thud.

My tortilla press!

It turns out that a Mexican restaurant they favor had just opened a market next door. They went in just before closing and found the last tortilla maker. Their descriptions of the look the cashier gave them were pretty funny. He seemed surprised that two gringo men (who also ordered chips and salsa to-go, by the way) would need such an item.

I finally got some corn masa flour last week and pulled out the press last night for my first attempt at making tortillas. I opted for a half batch of eight. The instructions called for 1 cup of the flour, 1/8 tsp salt and 1/3 cup water. The label mentioned that more water could be added if the dough was dry. Mine was dry so I added about 2 tbsp more of water.

I rolled the dough into eight balls as instructed, covered the press with plastic wrap on both sides, placed the dough ball in the middle and pressed down the dough.

As you can see, not so good on my first try. It wasn’t round at all. I decided to flatten the ball out a bit before pressing to encourage it to go round and this is what I got. Success!

I popped them on a hot griddle pan for about one minute on each side and kept the cooked tortillas warm and soft by covering the plate with a wet paper towel.

I went for the standard fillings this time, but the exciting part was that I got to try my first purchase of grass fed and finished ground beef from Pike Valley Farm. Delicious! I seasoned it up with cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper.

Oh, and crushed red pepper. About the crushed red pepper…be sure you check your cap before sprinkling it in. Yep, pulled the whole unscrewed-the-cap-when-it-was-a-flip-top and poured in about a ½ cup of red pepper. With my husband’s help, I spent about 10 minutes washing it off with water. Fortunately we managed to get it down to a tolerable level of spiciness.

After we saved the meat I topped the tacos with lettuce, cheddar cheese, chopped jalapenos, salsa, olives and green onion.

I was taken a bit by surprise with my husband’s reaction to the dinner. He raved about the flavor of both the tortillas and the beef saying that all the flavors came out perfectly. I have to agree. The texture of the tortillas was excellent too, soft, yet firm and they didn’t break apart.

No more packaged tortillas for us. The extra 15 minutes it took to make them myself was worth every second!