Flour Tortillas – First Try

My name is Alejandra. I’m from Southern Arizona. I can eat a dozen tortillas in one sitting.

No, I don’t have a ‘problem.’ If I had any ‘problem’ it would be that I hardly ever get to eat anything that remotely gets close to looking like authentic Mexican food around these parts!!!

A girl just wants a decent tortilla sometimes. Heated up and shmeared with creamy, yellow butter…melting all over the place…rolled up.

When I was little, that was my after-school snack! How money is that! Thanks, Mom :)

Food In My Beard recently made tortillas to go along with a quesadilla type dish so tortillas were on my mind a few weekends ago. The BF was bored and when he asked me what we could do for fun, I said, “Make tortillas?” He was game so I thought, why not? We’ll give it a try.

They were ok…they reminded me a bit of Mission Tortillas. Thick and spongy. Even after I obsessively rolled them out so thin they were practically see through, they were still thick and spongy!! They tasted good. They just weren’t thin enough. Or melt-in-your-mouth enough.

Maybe lard instead of shortening? Maybe obsessively roll them out even thinner? Maybe I need a comal?

My mom used to tell me a story about how, when she was a young girl living with her Grandparents, her Grandmother tried to teach her how to make tortillas. My mom, frustrated after a few failed batches, would just ball up the dough and throw it out the kitchen window into the front yard. Needless to say, a few hours later, there was a lot of dough in the front yard. She lost her desire to ever make homemade tortillas right then and there.

I don’t blame ya’ Mom! Theses things are a betch.

Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a try. While you do that, I’m going to try out Pioneer Woman’s tortillas next. I’m pretty much going to keep trying recipes until I find the best one. And then I will share that with you. And then we will all never eat spongy, inadequate, decidedly un-Mexican tortillas ever again.

Enjoy!

Flour Tortillas

From MyMexicanRecipes.com

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons shortening
1 cup hot water

Thoroughly mix the dry ingredients, then cut in the lard with your fingers or with a fork. Add enough water to make a stiff dough, then turn out onto a floured surface and knead the dough for about 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

Divide into balls. Dust your surface with a bit of flour and, using a rolling pin, roll out into circles, making them as thin as possible. On an ungreased comal (cast iron smooth griddle) or heavy skillet over medium-high heat, cook the first side about 15 seconds, until you start getting bubbles on the surface, then turn and cook for 10 more seconds then turn one more time and check that the bubbles have colored. Remove from comal onto your awaiting cloth-lined tortilla basket and cover to keep warm.