Sunday, February 20, 2011

Making Tortillas

Cilantro Lime Rice

Tortilla in my trusty cast iron skillet

Ready for the skillet

Tman working hard, using our new technique


One of my husband's favorite meals is homemade corn tortillas, salsa and queso fresco. T, my 9 year old, loves to help me make the tortillas and we have streamlined our "process".

In the past, I just used my tortilla press and it was a pretty easy way to make them except for the random sticky tortillas that didn't "peel" off easily. My husband's grandma from Mexico makes the BEST tortillas I have ever eaten & I watched her do it when she was visiting-the skill and speed to turn out so many tortillas was mind boggling.

We had watched a youtube video that showed how to flatten your tortilla by using plastic wrap and the bottom of a heavy cup. The pros: peeled off paper soooo nicely. The cons: sometimes inconsistent thickness, loud...our Sheltie barked every time we banged the tortilla with the cup.

So.....we used the plastic wrap inside the tortilla press & voila....really uniform, thin tortillas that we could press faster than we could cook.
Our recipe is simple: Maseca, bit of salt & enough warm water to make a firm dough that holds together in a ball. Roll into walnut-sized balls and press. Heat a bit of olive oil in skillet (cast iron works best) and cook until golden brown. We spread on salsa and crumbled queso fresco. Yum!

It feels like summer to pull a container of homemade salsa from our deep freeze. We had a CRAZY abundance of tomatoes this year & I made several batches of what I call sweet-hot-smoky salsa.
In addition, we made cilantro-lime rice. I use Martha's Everyday Food version. Delicious; tastes just like Chipotles'.
Have a blessed week!!

3 comments:

  1. I may have to try my hand at making our own tortilla's. it doesn't sound as hard as I used to think it would be.

    Blessings~

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  2. This is so awesome...kindred spirits!! I just started doing this using all the same stuff. A friend from Mexico (parent of old ESL students of mine) gave me a press just liked that and showed me how to do it. They're becoming more and more like tortillas with every try! I'm planning to blog about the experience soon...

    so fun...

    Yay!

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  3. I just planted cilantro. I have to try this rice recipe.

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