Homemade Tortillas - May 2015
The Recipe of the Month for April 2015 is homemade tortillas! These are delicious, full-bodied tortillas, made fresh and served warm. It's a completely different experience than just buying tortillas, and you have to give it a shot!
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Photo from Flickr.[/caption]
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 tablespoons vegetable shortening like Crisco, or use lard
3/4 cup hot water
1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and shortening. Mix together with your fingertips and break shortening up into small pieces.
2. Add hot water and continue to mix with your hands until completely incorporated into a dough.
3. Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic (5-10mins). Form dough into a ball and cover with a moist towel. Let it rest for at least 15 minutes, up to an hour or two.
4. Separate dough into 12 roughly equal pieces and roll each into a small ball. Heat a pan or griddle to medium high heat. Flatten each dough ball on a floured surface to form a circle of dough, as flat as you can, or roughly 1/8th of an inch.
5. Place one onto hot pan or griddle, cook until bubbles form. Flip over and continue cooking another 30-45 seconds, or until golden brown. When cooked, place the tortilla on a plate and repeat the process with another piece of dough. Cover pile of cooked tortillas with a clean dish towel to preserve warmth. Serve and eat as soon as possible!
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If the dough doesn't sizzle when it hits the pan, it isn't hot enough. If tortillas start to burn within 30 seconds, or if there is smoke, heat is too high. I have heard of people using softened butter instead of shortening or lard. I haven't experimented with it myself, but if you have all of the other ingredients except shortening, try it out! If you leave the tortillas on for too long and they harden up and become brittle, congratulations! You just made tortilla chips!
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NEW! If you have a Facebook account, you can comment with it! Have you made tortillas before? What do you do? What looks good or what needs work? If you make tortillas with this recipe, let us know how it goes, in the comments!
