This week is something totally different for me. It isn’t sourdough and most wouldn’t consider it bread. But it is the 5th of May or Cinco de Mayo, so what better way to celebrate than with homemade corn tortillas.
I have been thinking about this for a while as the last few packages from the supermarket have been bland and somewhat tasteless to me. Then, just as May approached, I learned that Wegmans sells Maseca brand masa harina. And tortillas are similar to sourdough in that they are both made from three ingredients water, salt and flour which in the case of tortillas is masa harina instead of wheat flour.
Masa harina is different than grits or polenta in that the corn has been dried, then cooked in an alkaline solution and the skin removed, then rinsed and dried again before grinding into flour.
Once I knew that Wegmans had Maseca, I ordered a tortilla press online. I chose a cast iron one made in Columbia branded Victoria.
The recipe on the Maseca bag calls for 2 cups of Maseca to 1-1/2 cups of water. Online recipes I found called for using warm water and adding a pinch of salt and I did both. After mixing the dough I thought it was pretty dry and I ended up adding 3 tablespoons of additional water, 1 at a time, until I had a nice dough that didn’t crumble. The recipe on the bag called for forming 1 ounce balls of dough to make 5” tortillas but I wanted them larger. I used 30 grams of dough and made 5-1/2 to 6” tortillas.
To press the dough balls into tortillas I took a gallon sized zip lock bag, cut off the zip lock and cut the bag down to fit the tortilla press.
Debbie and I worked together to make the tortillas. We had a 10” cast iron griddle preheated on the stove. I was pressing and Debbie was cooking them. The first few were rough until we figured out what we were doing. After the first couple I ended up adding a few drops of canola oil to the dough and working it in. I read about doing that to help the dough release from the plastic. It seemed to do the trick. Once we got our rhythm down and got the heat high enough on the griddle things went smoothly.
I have to admit I am surprised at how good these actually came out. We made both nachos and tacos and the tortillas worked well for both dishes. The corn flavor in the tortillas came through in both as well. The tortillas did not sog out from the meat filling in the tacos and they held up well first bite to last. Better outcome than I could have hoped for.