Flour tortillas

And so, we arrived in England and on our second day we were eating Fish and Chips, Jacket Potatoes and Donner Kebabs of course. But soon we felt a void and we knew nothing could replace that delicious trait of the Mexican cuisine: tortilla. During the first days the task was to find the ingredients, I knew that the first option would be flour tortillas, which can be easily made out of ordinary ingredients. In less than a week I had everything I needed, a bowl, a rolling pin, and the ingredients. Here's the recipe:

Flour Tortillas (makes about 24 tortillas)

Ingredients

500 gms plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

125 gms shortening or lard

240 ml warm water  (as hot as your hands can take it)

Dough

Mix the flour, salt and baking powder

Blend the shortening until there are no lumps left

Add water little by little and start kneading the dough. Keep working the dough until the surface is dry and the consistency is elastic, not chewy (in case it goes chewy put some more flour on the surface, the dough will absorb it)

Set the dough for 30 minutes in a bowl, cover it with a tea towel or kleen-pack

Form the dough into individual balls the size you like (a small golf ball size is enough)

Roll the dough until you get a thin flat tortilla (4-6 times should be enough)

Technique and secrets

My granny Adelina, my dad’s mom, was a tortilla’s expert. She would make two kilos of flour every day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When we visited her in Monclova, I would spend hours in the kitchen, watching her work. She used to tell me stories from the past while she rolled the tortillas and I always wondered how she managed to achieve these perfect round flat tortillas in only 4 times rolling. I’m absolutely certain it was the experiences of years and years of working the dough helped her master the technique, it’s a long way for me to get there, but I must say that after 5 times rolling I get a really nice decent flat round tortilla. The secret to a perfect, soft and delicious tortilla is in the kneading, you have to be patient and loving with the ingredients, water must be really warm, no too hot to cook the flour, not to cold not to melt the shortening or lard; the texture should be dry, soft and elastic, so that it won’t break when flattening it. The other secret is in the cooking. Tortillas should be put on a hot pan (in Mexico we use a flat pan called comal), hot enough to cook it evenly, but not so hot as to burn it outside and leave it raw inside, let’s say in a scale from 1 to 6 use 5. When putting the tortilla on the hot surface you will notice it will “shrink” a bit and it will slide easily on the pan (this happens quite quickly, about 5 seconds after putting it on the pan), right then you must flip it over and the allow the complete cooking of one of the sides (you will notice bubbles on the top side of the tortilla), then flip it over again and then allow the cooking to be complete, you will probably see the tortilla blow like a balloon, which is the right moment to remove it from the heat (this process leaves a “burned” circle on the surface that is on the hot pan, a typical trait of my grandma’s tortillas... oh and take note the side where the burned circle is should always be the inner part of the taco). 

When ready, I suggest you don’t pile the tortillas because they may stick together It’s best to use a tea towel and extend them on a table or working surface, although I must confess that, as in my childhood, I’ve always enjoyed catching them “in the air” like the days when my granny used to throw them as frisbees from the stove to the table... what a delight!

Warning:  flour tortillas may cause heartburn, eat them sparingly.