zondag 8 april 2012

Flour Tortillas a Mexican Basic



A new cook has arrived at I heart cooking clubs. After spending a lovely six months cooking With Tessa Kiros we are welcoming Rick Bayless as our next cook. His comfort zone in Cooking is believe it or not MEXICAN food, And mine definately isn't. I had my fare share of mexican food but mostly in restaurants and the only mexican meal i can prepare is from a manufactured mealkit. So The next six months will be fun or they won't but the main reason i started this blog 2 years ago was to learn better cooking and for that you can't stay in your comfort zone!

So for this first week the theme is ¡Bienvenido Rick! To welcome him at our cooking club and we can choos any recipe we want. So because i don't know anything from mexican cooking i thought it would be nice to start with some basic recipe and that is flour tortillas.

When i was reading some recipe from Rick Bayles i noticed another difficulty for me. He/mexican kitchen uses a lot of ingredient that aren't common in the netherlands. Such as Chipotle, Tomatillos, vegetable shortening or lard and more. So i have to find some creative solutions for that in the next six months.

Starting today with the flour tortillas, there was the first problem of the use of lard or vegetable shortening. I managed to get a jar of vegetable shortening but it cost me 6 euros(1 Euro = 1.3094 U.S. dollars at this moment). I think thats a little bit expensive so i want to find a substitute for it and i don't wan't to use butter.

So i divided the flour in two and made half the recipe with the vegetable shortening and the other half i used sunflower oil. The rolling of the tortillas was a little bit difficult but after a few they turn out almost round. The baking wend well too, both tortillas grilled niceley in the griddle and you can't see any visual differences between te two. The only thing is that the taste is miltlydifferent and the sunflower oil tortillas seemed a little softer then the ones made with the vegetable shortening. So now i know that the sunflower oil works well in this recipe.

Flour Tortillas
Tortillas de Harina
Makes 12 tortillas
Recipe from the Authentic Mexican Cookbook by Rick Bayless

Ingredients

3/4 pound (2 3/4 cups) all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for rolling the tortillas
5 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening, or a mixture of the two, or 5 tblsp of sunflower oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
about 3/4 cup very warm tap water

Directions

1. Make the dough. Combine the flour and fat in a large mixing bowl, working in the fat with your fingers, until completely incorporated. Dissolve the salt in the water, pour about 2/3 cup of it over the dry ingredients and immediately work it in with a fork; the dough will be in large clumps rather than a homogeneous mass. If all the dry ingredients haven't been dampened, add the rest of the liquid (plus a little more, if necessary). Scoop the dough onto your work surface and knead until smooth. It should be medium-stiff consistency -- definitely not firm, but not quite as soft as most bread dough either.


2. Rest the dough. Divide the dough into 12 portions and roll each into a ball. Set them on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and let rest at least 30 minutes (to make the dough less springy, easier to roll).


3. Roll and griddle-bake the tortillas. Heat an ungreased griddle or heavy skillet over medium to medium-high heat.


On a lightly floured surface, roll out a portion of the dough into an even 7-inch circle: Flatten a ball of dough, flour it, then roll forward and back across it; rotate a sixth of a turn and roll forward and back again; continue rotating and rolling until you reach a 7-inch circle, lightly flouring the tortilla and work surface from time to time.


Lay the tortilla on the hot griddle (you should hear a faint sizzle and see an almost immediate bubbling across the surface). After 30 to 45 seconds, when there are browned splotches underneath, flip it over. Bake 30 to 45 seconds more, until the other side is browned; don't overbake the tortilla or it will become crisp. Remove and wrap in a cloth napkin placed in a tortilla warmer. Roll and griddle-bake the remaining tortillas in the same manner and stacking them one on top of the other.

I am admitting this to:
Rick Bayless @IHCC button rounded


12 opmerkingen:

  1. They look great! I made tortillas too. We don't have a lot of Mexican food in Canada either, and some ingredients are hard to find, especially fresh.
    Lard and shortening are popular here though as people make pie crusts out of them here.
    Great thinking subbing veg oil!

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  2. I am super excited the next chef is Rick Bayless - and I have time this round to participate! Your tortillas look amazing.

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  3. Beautiful tortillas! I have no doubt that you will come up with some wonderful substitutes for the ingredients that are hard to find.

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  4. I'm glad that the oil worked out for you. Way to get creative! I look forward to seeing your venture into the world of Mexican cooking over the next six months =)

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  5. Lovely tortillas, Yvette! I so wanted to make some Tortillas soon. You are right about the ingredients, got to be creative as most ingredients are also not available here and new to me! I need to google for info before deciding on the subs!
    Happy Easter!

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  6. You tortillas are perfect. It will definitely be a challenge to find some ingredients but I think finding substitutions is going to help and will be very interesting... And as you said, it will be good learning! ;-)

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  7. Congratulations to you for going out of comfort zone. I think your flour tortillas look amazing. I've tried making them several times and mine never turn out as well as yours have. You did a great job!

    Hope you are able to find some of the Mexican ingredients and/or substitutions.

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  8. your tortillas are perfect! congrats, happy to cook along with you!

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  9. i've made tortilla a couple of times and i also have difficulty rolling them round! your homemade tortilla looks very good!

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  10. The tortillas look great! they're on my "to do" list.

    I was searching for lard for a very long time as I need them for my chilean empanadas dough. Finally I found it in an British shop in The Hague on the Frederik Hendriklaan. They sell it for €1.45 for 250 grams. Here's the link for the online shop: http://www.thomasgreen.eu/shop/index.php?pgrp=7&pgrp2=BUTTER

    The dough get's so much smoother with this stuff!

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    Reacties
    1. Thanks pientje, for this great tip.
      Only €1,45 i feel stupid i paid 6 euros.

      Now i am curious for your empenadas!

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  11. Careful, these are Northern mexican tortillas, the ones from center and south of mexico are Corn tortillas and they don't like it when you mistake them.

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