Fuelled by Netflix binging I felt inspired to make some tacos. Me being me though I thought I would give tortilla making a go rather than buying ready made ones. For what seems like a simple thing to make you do need to use a plastic sandwich bag for rolling them out if you don't have a tortilla press (and I don't). Yes I know I'm saying you need to use plastic but you can wash and re-use the bag for future tortilla making, so don't chuck it away. I have tried using a pasta machine and it just doesn't work given the dough is rather wet. My tortilla recipe makes small tortillas for tacos rather than larger ones for burritos. I would say you could probably make 10 large tortillas from this recipe. Masa harina flour is made from corn (not to confuse this with cornflour though). You can get this in speciality shops such as Wholefoods or online.
If you have any leftover you can make tortilla chips with them!
Makes approx. 20
Hands-on Time 10 minutes
Cooking Time 2 minutes (per tortilla)
Ingredients
250g Masa harina (white or blue)
1/2 tsp Fine salt
385ml Water
2 tbsp Olive oil
Equipment
Bowl
Knife
Food bag, large
Scissors
Rolling pin
Wide frying pan
Palette knife
Tea towel
Add the flour and salt to the bowl followed by the water and oil. Combine using your hand until you form a dough. It should be a little sticky still.
Take a piece of dough and flatten it between your hands. If it cracks a lot around the edges then you should add a few more drops of water as it’s too dry.
Tip the dough out onto a worktop and make a sausage shape. Using a knife divide the dough into 20 pieces. Roll each portion of dough into a ball.
Take a sandwich bag and cut open both sides, but not the bottom, and open it up.
Place one ball of dough on the middle of one of the sides and fold the other side of the bag over the top. Press down using your hand to flatten the ball.
Take a rolling pin, place it on the middle of the dough and roll outwards. Rotate the dough by 45 degrees and repeat this process until it’s thin and round.
Place a frying pan over a medium-high heat.
Once the pan has heated up, peel away the bag and place the tortilla into the frying pan. Cook for 1 minute before flipping over. The tortilla should be browned in places. Cook for another minute before placing onto a clean tea towel. Fold the towel over to cover the tortilla.
Given it could take 40 minutes to cook the tortillas if you are doing them one at a time, I would try and get a rhythm going. When you place the first tortilla into the frying pan, roll out your next one whilst it cooks. When you flip the tortilla over add the new one to the pan and get on with making the next one. This should save you some time and you’ll always be doing something!
Enjoy!
