Taco Phase Info

Coming soon=Now 😀

Mkay, so like a month ago, Isaac brought home a stray bag of

White Wings Flour Tortilla mix, which, is basically flour with some other good stuff mixed into it to make it taste tortilla-y. (Said mix can be bought here.) He got it at our local HEB for a couple bucks,  I bought it at the local Kroger for $2.69 ( ~Isaac 20100912) and supposedly, the recipe on the back said something about 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup water.

Have you ever wondered how people made those recipes?
Y’know, the majority of them stink, this one did too.
Reminded me vaguely of my early attempts of bread.
The ones I made before I discovered yeast (the bread made post-yeast disovery weren’t that much better either though to be honest).

So the next day I got up and made I-can-do-s0-much-better-than-your-mix! tortillas,

Which are really just tortillas made from the“Authentic Mexican Tortillas” recipe from Allrecipes with adjustments made from the reviews on the page.

Tortillas

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups All Purpose Flour
• 2 Tsps Baking Powder
• 2 Tsps Salt
• 3/4 Cup Shortening
• 3/4 Cup Hot Water

1. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the shortening till the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal. If the mixture looks more floury than crumbly, be sure to add just one or two more tablespoons of shortening till it is crumbly. Add about 3/4 cup hot water to the mixture, or just enough to make the ingredients look moist.
2. With your hand or a large fork, knead the mixture making sure to rub the dough against the sides of the large mixing bowl to gather any clinging dough. If the dough still sticks to the side of the bowl, add a couple more tablespoons of flour until the dough forms a soft round shape. The dough is ready to roll out now, but it is best to let it rest. Cover it with a dish towel, and let it sit for about an hour or so.
3. Take the dough, and pull it apart into the desired number of balls. Lightly flour your rolling area, and roll each ball with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thickness.
4. Place each tortilla on a medium hot cast iron skillet. Cook for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until the tortilla does not look doughy.
5. Set each cooked tortilla aside, making sure to cover and retain the moisture in some fashion.

Concerning:

• Step 1, try be sure not to have any lumps bigger than a pea.
• Step 2, I kneaded this step a tiny bit, just to make sure the dough was uniform and didn’t have random clods of flour.
• Step 3,By “desired amount of balls” I mean, “balls-that-will-roll-out-big-enough-to-fill” If you’re really picky, the original amount was 10-12, but honestly, i started mashing in another half in each rolled out tortilla, and they were still puny. Oh, excuse me, “gourmet”-sized
• Step 4, Here, you might get burnt fingers. We’d lay down tortillas, but they’d bunch up and be all weird so we’d risk our fingers trying to flatten them- Well, Tip:Use a nonstick skillet. and I’d hit my pan against the burners a bit to let gravity and shock do their thing. This was the phase we learned to flip, because Isaac felt like it and I didn’t want to lose.
• Step 5, this part is CRUCIAL. the best tortillas we had were the ones Isaac made today and stuck in a tortilla box. YOU NEED TO COVER YOUR TORTILLAS, some people wrap them in a clean towel, until we found the tortilla box, we stuck them on a plate and covered the tortillas with a lid. There’s not much moisture in these babies and if you don’t cover them they’ll be like said pre-yeast discovery bread.

I liked these alot; they were vaguely pie crusty (and I like pie crustiness). But I really only made them once, and once Isaac got the hang of his Tortilla+Tortilla mix making technique they were nice and didn’t need as half as much work. (but then again, i didn’t even watch him make them so of course making them was easy for me).

~Grace

Before I forget, when cooking, it’s important to have the pan preheated to medium high heat — too high, the tortillas will instantly cook and burn to the pan, rendering it difficult to flip and burnt around the edges. Bad. Turn the heat too low, and then you’ll have to wait a long time (~2-3 minutes) for each side to cook.  It takes tweaking, but once you get the heat right, it will only take about 30-60 second for the first side, flip, and around 30 seconds for the other side.  It’s best to tell when it’s ready to flip by looking — like pancakes, when it starts to bubble, and the tortilla looks thoroughly opaque, and not doughy, it’s ready to flip. Oh, by the way, no oil on the pan!

Quick economics:
5 lb (80 ounces) bag – $2.69
2 cups flour (~10 ounces) – makes 8 tortillas

80 ounce bag / 10 ounces = 8 uses following recipe on back
8*8 = 64 tortillas!

$2.69 bag of mix / 64 tortillas = $0.04 per tortilla!

Last I checked, at the store, 20 fresh tortillas cost roughly the same, let’s say $2.50:
$2.50 / 20 = $0.13 per tortilla

So, you’re getting fresh tortillas for a 1/3 of the price! Yes, it’s counting pennies I’d just as soon eat a dime than a nickel. And, it’s convenient to head to the store to get a sack of tortillas, but to me, it’s quite empowering to know that you can make your own tortilla, for cheap! It just takes a little time and love.

More tips soon, hopefully.

20100912

-Isaac