35.MEXICAN FOOD
Flour Tortillas
A "tortilla" de farinha de trigo é resultado de uma simples mistura de farinha de trigo, gordura animal ou vegetal, sal e água. Muito embora você tenha lido, as "tortillas" não são feitas com o metodo de prensagem. A massa é muito macia e grudenta e não totalmente espalmada sem a assistência de mãos habilidosas ou um bom rolo de abrir massas (palote).
As "tortillas" de farinha e para manter-se fina, sem crescer, a massa precisa ser trabalhada até que a sua composição grudenta desapareça. Caso não a utilize depois de aberta volte a amassá-la dando o formato de bola.
Faz: 12 tortillas
Ingredientes
3/4 de xícara (chá) de farinha de trigo + farinha para abrir as tortillas
5 colheres de sopa de gordura animal ou vegetal
3/4 colher (chá) de sal
3/4 de xícara (chá) de água bem morna
Preparo
Coloque a farinha em um recipiente e misture-a com a gordura usando a ponta dos dedos. Adicione o sal na água e misture-a à farinha até que se forme uma massa bem
firme.
Sove a massa em uma superfície enfarinhada por aproximadamente 10 a 15 minutos até que adquira consistência elástica.
Divida a massa em doze pedaços e, com estes, forme bolas com a palma das mãos.
Coloque-as em um plástico bem fechado para que não resseque e as vá retirando à medida que as for abrindo. Depois de todas abertas volte a colocar em um saco plástico ligeiramente enfarinhado por dentro, feche-o e as deixe descansar por aproximadamente 30 minutos.
What is the recipe for the tortilla?
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Making tortillas from scratch About "industrial" tortillas Recipe for enchiladas Recipe for tortillas A lexicon of tortilla terms Nachos and burritos
I am looking for a recipe to prepare the tortilla for enchiladas, assuming I cannot find any ready-to-make crust. I would like to use basic ingredients only, e.g. flour, etc.
I wish it were as simple as giving you a recipe. The tortilla takes some serious work and time to manufacture. Maybe the least heart- breaking recommendation I can pass along is for you to hunt in your basic "ethnic food store" for a bag of processed corn meal by either of the labels "Masaharina"(TM) or "Maseca" (TM) (actually, if there is any sort of Mexican population where you live, you may not need to look beyond the Mexican foods section of your regular grocery store), then follow the instructions on the bag. However, I can almost guarantee that the first few times you go through the procedure your tortillas will be less than satisfactory. Mexican women who make their own tortillas (these days, this is mostly in rural areas) go through an apprenticeship that lasts for years, beginning as little girls, to learn how to make a truly fine tortilla. For what it's worth though, we've found that Maseca flour usually gives the best results in terms of consistence and flavor (products made with Masaharina tend to go stale and rancid sooner, indicating that the oil content of this flour must be higher than Maseca's).
What to do if you really want to make tortillas from scratch
If you were truly to begin from scratch, you'd get some white corn grain and set it to low boil in a covered pot with some slaked lime or wood ashes. You can get this in Mexican open-air markets by asking for "cal," or "tequisquite." Much of the language employed to talk about corn, tortillas, and the process of making tortillas, is based on the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and I'll mention these terms as we go along. The process described above will loosen the "skins" (pericarp) of the kernels, and you'd find most of these skins floating at the top of the steep liquor next morning. This alkaline solution has the side effect of making bound niacin in the corn endosperm soluble, and therefore available as a nutrient (this is important to folks who depend on corn as their staple source of nutrients; in Mexico annual per capita consumption of tortillas is about 410 lb., or as you can see, a little over 1 lb. per day, and in rural areas it is estimated that tortillas provide about 70% of the caloric intake). You would discard the supernate and the steep liquor itself (called "nejayote"), then wash the remaining "naked" kernels (consisting mostly of pure starch) and embryos ("germs," where most of the oil is concentrated). However, if you wanted to avoid this whole process and start from this point on, you could look for 'hominy' in your local grocery store, since this is precisely what hominy is.
Next, you'd get hold of a grinding stone utensil (known in Mexico as 'metate,') and you'd begin slaving over the corn grain with a pestle and a jug of water by your side. In the course of grinding the grain you're homogenizing and gelatinizing the starch, protein and germ, and also somewhat dehydrating it; however, you must add water continuously to make the resulting mixture pliable. When you are done, you'll have a dough that you will work into small balls from which you'll shape your tortillas. These spheres are known as "testales." This step takes between half an hour to an hour, depending on how many tortillas you are making. If you would want to dispense with this step, then use the Maseca flour mentioned above. This is essentially the dough in dehydrated state, ready for you to rehydrate and shape your tortillas.
Shaping and cooking the tortilla is a key step, and the one where the greatest skill is involved. What you are trying to do is create as thin and round a patty of the dough as possible. As you work it, you will be further dehydrating the mixture. The trick is to lose only so much water in this step and in the next, which involves baking both sides of the tortilla for 30 to 60 seconds on a hot griddle, so that the resulting product has a specific water content when done (about 40% moisture, which is crucial), making it soft and pliable. The tortilla should puff as you bake it, but if air bubbles form in the dough as it bakes, or if is too wet and pasty, or too dry and burns, or is toasted as it bakes, then the resulting tortilla is ruined. As you can imagine, Indian women who mass-produce tortillas three times a day don't stop to think about baking time or moisture content, they have simply developed the knack to know when the dough is ready and how much baking to allow. Also, it is no easy matter to form a round tortilla in the limited amount of time you have between grinding/kneading the dough, patting it out, and having to lay it on the griddle before it dries excessively. Experienced Indian women in Mexico are a wonder to watch as they do this using nothing but their hands (no flat surface) as they pat out perfect circles between their palms. If you wanted to avoid this step, then you'd go buy a "tortilla press," which is a couple of round metal or wooden sheets that you press by means of a lever. You place a doughball on one of the sheets, press, then cut off the dough extruded from the press, leaving a round sheet of dough inside the press; OR you could go buy 'industrial tortillas' in the frozen foods section of your grocery store.
There is no industrial tortilla that can compare with the freshly baked and ready-to-eat article, as you might expect. To facilitate the mechanization of the process, a number of compromises are made. Most industrial processes begin with a flower base such as Maseca, create large batches of the dough, pass it through rollers to create the flattened cake, then actually cut out a perfectly round tortilla, which is then paraded through several series of conveyor belts, passing through an oven, and then open ventilated space to allow for cooling and water loss, before packing in plastic bags which are then frozen and shipped. The weak link in the whole process is that tortillas don't last in storage and lose their flavor in a hurry when aged/frozen. The main reason is that their oil content leads to them becoming sour, and the freezing process used in the US leads to water condensation on the tortillas themselves, which always makes them pasty and mushy when you try to use them again at room temperature. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal (May 10, 1996) indicated that the world market for tortillas is worth about $5 billion U. S. According to this article, even though Mexicans consume about 10 times as many tortillas per capita as U. S. consumers, the Mexican tortilla market is still dominated by small "tortillerias." In Mexico, packaged tortillas account for only 5 percent of sales. However, large flour-producing industries, such as Maseca and Bimbo, are predicting that "the end of tortilla subsidies in Mexico will transform the Mexican market, giving an advantage to U.S.-style marketing of plastic-bagged tortillas in supermarkets."
Now then, let's say that you've either made or purchased your tortillas and are ready to make your enchiladas. This is a dish whose name means that you've "chilified" some tortillas. "Chili" is derived from the Aztec name for what you call a "chile pepper," the fruit of various species of plants of the genus Capsicum. Following is a recipe for enchiladas that I give with some hesitation. It was collected from rural Indian women near the vicinity of Puebla, Mexico, and the instructions are sparce and most useful for cooks of whom great familiarity with Mexican cooking can be assumed (Recetario de Maiz, Colegio de Postgraduados, CEICADAR, 1990. Translation and all errors of same are my fault!)
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RED ENCHILADAS (Enchiladas Rojas)
Ingredients:
18 tortillas
8 dried red chilis (chile ancho, translator's note: Capsicum annum)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1.5 cups cheese (translator's note, in US try Monterrey Jack or Muenster)
2 pepper seeds (translator's note: black pepper, or Piper nigrum)
1 stick cinammon
2 cloves
Radishes to suit
1 lettuce head
Cooking oil
Salt to suit
Preparation:
Dice onion and shred cheese
Clean and rinse chiles, grind together with clove, cinammon, garlic, pepper and salt.
Fry tortillas and dip in sauce prepared above, fill with cheese, roll, stack on tray and garnish with lettuce.
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Of course, if you wanted to dispense with the trouble, you could go buy frozen enchiladas in the frozen foods section of your grocery store, and then you are time ahead, but culinary experience far, far behind.
Two more related items for your interest. First, the recipe for tortillas as given by Indian women themselves (from above cited work), then a brief lexicon of words related to the tortilla making process.
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TORTILLAS
Ingredients:
4.25 pecks of white corn (Translator's note: 5 "maquilas")
100 grams (Translator's note: about 3.5 oz) limestone
Utensils:
Metate (Translator's note: stone mortar and pestle)
Tortilla press (Translator's note: _anyone_ can make a tortilla this way ;)
Plastic sheets of slightly larger diameter than tortilla press
Griddle
Preparation:
Cook corn in a can or pot with water and limestone (Translator's note, this takes hours, and is typically left overnight)
When the corn skins can be peeled remove from fire and add more water.
Cover and allow to "steam cook."
Rinse corn and grind to make dough.
Mix well and make small dough balls. Place on tortilla press between plastic sheets to avoid sticking. Press tortilla and bake on griddle.
Turn twice and remove when "puffed."
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Now then, if you're going to be looking at recipes involving tortillas, there are a number of words that are certain to come up. Following is a basic lexicon to help understand these:
TORTILLA - Name given by Spaniards to the corn-based flat-bread they found in use in Mexico. This literally means "smallish and flattened," (for instance, it is what a Spaniard would call an egg omelette). Native names differed, but in three major languages it was: TLAXCALLI (Nahuatl, the Aztec tongue), YET (Zapotec), WEJ (Maya).
CENTLI - Nahuatl for "corn." Ordinal number meaning literally "first," ETL (bean) is second, etc. Used as particle when distinguishing varieties of corn (as in cacahuaCENTLI, tepeCENTLI, etc.)
METATE - From Nahuatl "Metatl." Stone mortar used to grind corn. Made from basaltic stone. It turns out to be an essential part of the tortilla making process for a number of reasons. One is that as a soft volcanic stone, the basalt wears easily and actually helps to disrupt ungelatinized starch by becoming part of the dough, in small minute particles. This is so essential for the making of good dough that even in modern industria processes, the corn is ground with basaltic stone grinders. Second, this incorporated basaltic stone is thought to account for the excellent dental health and hygiene shown by Indians, whose teeth are cleaned abrasively as they eat tortillas.
NIXTAMAL - The "naked" corn grains, or "hominy" remaining after removing kernel skins in alkaline bath.
NEJAYOTE - The steep liquor in which corn grains are bathed to remove skins.
TONEUHCAYOTL - From Nahuatl: "our flesh," the dough made from the ground corn, known also by Spanish name "MASA." Reflecting both tha this was the common starting point for a number of essential staple foods (tortillas, tamales, etc.), and also the belief that human beings were made by the gods from corn dough (which I personally find more flattering than being made of dirt, as the myth of another small tribe elsewhere would have us believe
TESTAL - From Nahuatl: "testalli," the dough ball from which tortillas are patted out
COMAL - From Nahuatl: "comalli," the clay or metal griddle on which tortillas are baked
TENATE - From Nahuatl: "tenatl," the basket made from woven dried leaves that is used to keep tortillas warm after baking and before consumption
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I am also looking for recipes to prepare other type of tortillas, for example the nacho one, or the burrito one.
These aren't really "other types of tortillas." Nachos, for instance, are unknown in Mexico. The closest thing might be a "totopo" or perhaps a "tostada." A totopo is a tortilla that is made with salt in the dough and is then baked dry, rather than pliable. This toasted tortilla was made specifically for travellers, as it keeps without spoiling. A tostada is a thoroughly post-conquest confection (Indian cooking before the conquest did not include a number of ingredients/procedures that are now closely associated with "Mexican food," such as frying, cheeses, etc.) You make tostadas with a coarser dough than for tortillas. You make "chips" by shaping the dough and then deep-fat frying it. Deep-fat frying is a way of quickly dehydrating a food. Coarser dough allows for water vapor to escape the dough quickly and so minimizes air bubbles in the resulting "tostadas." These corn chips are pretty oily things, and this is essentially what Frito-Lay and similar outfits have invented and christened "Nachos" in the US.
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A burrito is a taco made with a wheat flour tortilla. A taco is our "sandwich," in other words it is a generic food item made by rolling up any ingredient that you please within a tortilla, just as you consider anything you slap in between two slices of bread to be a sandwich. That stiff concoction made with a greasy "saddle" shell that you call a taco in the US is a purely industrial invention unkown in Mexico. When the "tortilla" is made from wheat flour, producing a thick, white flat-bread, then the taco you make from it is a "burrito." Wheat flour tortillas and burritos are specific to northern Mexico and are unknown and/or disliked in central/southern Mexico, where corn rules. If you ask for a burrito in the latter region, you'd be asking for a four-legged beast. This wheat-flour tortilla is a post-conquest confection (the Spaniards introduced the wheat crop) and is probably based on imitation of the corn version, though this wheat flat bread is similar to Mediterranean flat-breads, such as "pita" bread. In fact, in southern Mexico, this wheat-flour flat bread is known as "arab bread."
For futher information on this topic see the FAQ on BURRITOS on this same subdirectory.)
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TORTILLAS
Flour Tortillas
Flour tortilla are a simple mixture of flour, fat (lard or vegetable shortening), salt and water. Despite what you may have read, flour tortillas are NOT made with a tortilla press. The dough is too soft and sticky and will not flatten without the assistance of skilled hands or (for the rest of us) a rolling pin (palote).
The best (and traditional) rolling pin (palote) is made of wood and is 14" - 18" long and about 1" in diameter.
Flour tortillas are made with wheat flour and in order for the tortilla to maintain its flattened shape the dough must be rolled until the gluten strands break down. Without rolling the ball of dough would just snap back into its prior shape.
Makes: 12 tortillas
I N G R E D I E N T S
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
3/4 teaspoon salt
about 3/4 cup very warm tap water
I N S T R U C T I O N S
Put the flour in a large bowl and rub the lard or shortening into the flour using your fingertips. Add the salt to the water to dissolve. Mix the water into the flour a small amount at a time until you form a stiff dough.
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and kneed it for about 10-15 minutes until it is elastic.
Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll each one into a ball with the palm of your hands. Cover the pieces with plastic wrap while you work. When you are finished cover all the pieces and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
Roll out each ball on a lightly floured surface using a thin rolling pin. Rotate the tortilla one quarter with each roll to keep the shape even. (This takes a lot of practice so do not be disheartened if your first attempts don't make perfect round tortillas). Keep rolling until the tortilla is about 12".
Warm a comal over medium heat. Place one tortilla at a time on the surface (ungreased) and cook for about 45 seconds to 1 minute until the surface beings to blister and lightly brown. Turn the tortilla over and cook the other side for an additional minute.
Wrap the tortillas in a clean dish towel to keep them warm as you heat the rest.
Traditional Flour Tortilla Making
Flour tortillas are from the northern region of Mexico where wheat is grown rather than corn. Many skilled Mexican woman can toss the dough from hand to hand until it is almost 20" in diameter and paper thin. The tortillas are then heated on a hot comal the folded twice to form triangles. The folded tortillas are then eaten for either breakfast or the midday meal.
Lard
Even in Mexico the proper "fat" is controversial. Some say pork lard makes the best tortillas and more contemporary cooks say vegetable shortening. A combination of vegetable shortening and beef lard makes a flavorful combination.
CORN TORTILLAS
How to Make Homemade Corn Tortillas
Fresh corn tortillas are a fun meal project for adults and children.
I N G R E D I E N T S
2 cups masa harina
pinch of salt
1 cup warm water
Makes: 12- 6 inch tortillas
I N S T R U C T I O N S
1 Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms into a dough.
Dry masa flour
2 Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface such as a cutting board or your counter top. Knead the dough for about 3 to 4 minutes until it becomes smooth and no longer sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for about an hour.
Masa dough holding for 1 hour
3 Divide the tortilla dough into 12 equal size pieces. Keep the dough covered as you work. Take one piece at a time and roll it between your hands to form a ball.
Masa dough being rolled into a ball
4 Open the tortilla press and lay a piece of plastic wrap on the bottom of the press. Sit the ball of dough on the plastic wrap and flatten the dough by pressing down on it with the palm of your hand. Now lay a 2nd piece of plastic wrap on top of the dough.
Ball of masa dough, ready to press
5 Close the press and press down firmly a few times until the tortilla is flattened. The tortilla should be thin and round. This takes a little practice. They may not be "perfect" looking at first.
Pressing the masa dough in the tortilla press
Tortilla Press
A tortilla press is a simple metal or wooden object with a base, top, and handle. Balls of masa are placed in the center of the press, pressure applied and the dough is flattened into a round, flat tortilla.
Where To Buy
GourmetSleuth - We provide cast iron tortilla presses in 6.5" and 7.5" sizes as well as a complete line of Mexican specialties. View our catalog of Mexican Cooking Tools.
Epicurious definition
[MAH-sah ah-REE-nah]
The Spanish word for "dough," masa is the traditional dough used to make corn TORTILLAS. It's made with sun- or fire-dried corn kernels that have been cooked in limewater (water mixed with calcium oxide). After having been cooked, then soaked in the limewater overnight, the wet corn is ground into masa. Masa harina (literally "dough flour") is flour made from dried masa.
To Heat and Serve
Have a comal or frying pan on the stove top on "medium" high heat. Open the press and remove the tortilla while holding it between the two sheets of plastic wrap. Remove one side of the plastic then turn the tortilla onto a plate or directly onto the comal. Remove the other piece of plastic wrap. Heat the tortilla for about 1 minute on each side.
Completed fresh corn tortilla on a plate.
Cast Iron Comal
Used to heat corn tortillas. A version of 10" has a slightly raised lip and can also serve as a grill for fajitas.
MASA (Dough for tortillas and tamales)
Masa in Mexican means "dough". The masa is made from field corn, called maiz blanco or "cacahuazintle" [kaw-kaw-WAH-SEEN-til] which was dried, treated with a lime water solution, then ground. This page will describe the process of making masa. The masa can then be used for corn tortillas or for tamales.
The slaked corn (Nixtamal) can be used for making pozole (hominy).
Makes: 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 pounds
i n g r e d i e n t s
1 1/2 pounds (1 quart) dried white field corn
2 tablespoons "cal" slaked lime
d i r e c t i o n s
Clean the corn
Place the corn in a colander and rinse under cold water.
Prepare the lime mixture
Add 2 quarts of water to a large (at least 4 quart) noncorrosive pan. Place the pan over high heat and add the lime (cal) and stir until it is dissolved.
slaked lime (cal)
Boil the corn
Add the corn into the lime water, stirring gently. Use a slotted spoon and remove any kernels that float to the top of the water. Allow the water to boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. If you are making the dough for tortillas, allow to boil 2 minutes. If you are making tamale dough simmer for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the corn to soak. For tortilla dough allow to soak, covered, overnight. For tamale dough, allow to soak for an hour.
Wash the corn
This step is very important. If you don't rinse and clean the corn properly your dough will be yellow and taste like lime.
Pour the corn into a colander and place it under cold running water. Use both your hands and rub the corn between your hands to loosen any hulls still attached to the corn.
Continue until the corn is all white (except the tips). Drain the corn well. This cleaned, prepared corn is what is called "Nixtamal" or "Nixtamalado".
nixtamal - cleaned, damp corn
Pictured above you can see the little brown "heads" left on the corn. If you are making Pozole and you want the kernels to open (flower) then you need to "de-head" the kernals. De-heading simply means to pick off those little tips. This rather time-consuming step is optional and does not affect the flavor of the pozole, just the appearance.
stone metate y mano
This Stone Metate y Mano is available at GourmetSleuth.com. View
All Mexican Cooking Tools in our catalog. We sell molcajetes, tortilla presses, lemon squeezers, metates, all the essential Mexican products.
Victoria/Corona Plate-Style Grinder
This grinder is made by Corona (Columbia, South America). It attaches to your counter top or work surface. The standard version comes fitted with steel plates and costs about $40.00. Stone plates are a good add for a finer grind but are difficult to find. In Mexico and in South American only the steel plates are used and most people find that to be satisfactory for corn grinding.
Low hopper Grinder: $34.95
Nutrition
Masa Flour 1 - cup
Calories
416
Total fat (g) 4.3
Saturated fat (g)
Monounsaturated fat (g)
Polyunsaturated fat (g)
Dietary fiber (g) 0
Protein (g) 10.648
Carbohydrate (g) 86.9
Cholesterol (mg) 0
Sodium (mg) 5.7
Vitamin C (mg) 0
Related Articles
Tortilla Presses - Read More About Tortilla Press. Article shows the various types and how they are used.
Corn Tortillas - How to make homemade An illustrated guide to making your own corn tortillas..
Corn, Masa, Nixtamal - Learn about the history and significance of corn in Mexican life and cuisine.
Flour Tortillas - How to make flour tortillas
Grind the corn for tortilla dough
Metate y Mano
The traditional tool for grinding the nixtamal is the metate y mano. If you are an adventurous cook and don't mind a good work out then you'll enjoy using the metate. Depending on the size of your metate, place a handful or two of corn on the top surface. Use downward pressure on the mano and roll across the corn (like a rolling pin). Continue until the corn becomes finely pulverized. Repeat until all the corn has been ground.
Plate-Style Corn Mill (Molino)
While this is less labor intensive than the metate the corn mill (see photo) requires significant effort. Use the corn mill fitted with a stone plate. The stone plate, rather than a metal plate will produce the smoothest textured dough. Place the corn in the hopper and grind it through using the finest setting. The resulting mixture should be smooth and not gritty.
Once the corn is all ground add approximate 2/3 to 3/4 cup of water to the corn and mix to form medium-soft dough.
Food Processor
You can use your food processor to prepare the dough for tamales but it does not get quite fine enough for tortilla dough. Grind the corn in small batches, pulsing the corn 5 or 6 times. Then let the processor run continuously until the corn is the proper consistency (see next paragraph).
Grind the corn for tamale dough
Spread the drained corn onto a towel and pat dry with another towel. Use either of the tools described above and grind the dried corn. If you are using the plate-style grinder, use the medium or medium-fine setting. The ground corn should be a consistency of damp hominy grits. Add approximately 2/3 cups water to form a stiff dough.
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Authentic Mexican Tortillas
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 3/4 cups of vegetable shortening
- 3/4 cups hot water
Directions:
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Either by hand or with a pastry cutter, cut in the shortening till the mixture is crumbly. 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 cups hot water to the mixture, or just enough to make the ingredients look moist. 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 for flour until the dough forms a soft round shape. The dough is ready to rool 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. Take the dough, and pull it apart into 10 to 12 balls. Lightly flour your rolling area, and roll each ball with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thickness. Place each tortilla on a medium hot cast iron skillet. Cook for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until tortilla does not look doughy.
For more recipies like this visit: breadrecipe.com
A "tortilla" de farinha de trigo é resultado de uma simples mistura de farinha de trigo, gordura animal ou vegetal, sal e água. Muito embora você tenha lido, as "tortillas" não são feitas com o metodo de prensagem. A massa é muito macia e grudenta e não totalmente espalmada sem a assistência de mãos habilidosas ou um bom rolo de abrir massas (palote).
As "tortillas" de farinha e para manter-se fina, sem crescer, a massa precisa ser trabalhada até que a sua composição grudenta desapareça. Caso não a utilize depois de aberta volte a amassá-la dando o formato de bola.
Faz: 12 tortillas
Ingredientes
3/4 de xícara (chá) de farinha de trigo + farinha para abrir as tortillas
5 colheres de sopa de gordura animal ou vegetal
3/4 colher (chá) de sal
3/4 de xícara (chá) de água bem morna
Preparo
Coloque a farinha em um recipiente e misture-a com a gordura usando a ponta dos dedos. Adicione o sal na água e misture-a à farinha até que se forme uma massa bem
firme.
Sove a massa em uma superfície enfarinhada por aproximadamente 10 a 15 minutos até que adquira consistência elástica.
Divida a massa em doze pedaços e, com estes, forme bolas com a palma das mãos.
Coloque-as em um plástico bem fechado para que não resseque e as vá retirando à medida que as for abrindo. Depois de todas abertas volte a colocar em um saco plástico ligeiramente enfarinhado por dentro, feche-o e as deixe descansar por aproximadamente 30 minutos.
What is the recipe for the tortilla?
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Making tortillas from scratch About "industrial" tortillas Recipe for enchiladas Recipe for tortillas A lexicon of tortilla terms Nachos and burritos
I am looking for a recipe to prepare the tortilla for enchiladas, assuming I cannot find any ready-to-make crust. I would like to use basic ingredients only, e.g. flour, etc.
I wish it were as simple as giving you a recipe. The tortilla takes some serious work and time to manufacture. Maybe the least heart- breaking recommendation I can pass along is for you to hunt in your basic "ethnic food store" for a bag of processed corn meal by either of the labels "Masaharina"(TM) or "Maseca" (TM) (actually, if there is any sort of Mexican population where you live, you may not need to look beyond the Mexican foods section of your regular grocery store), then follow the instructions on the bag. However, I can almost guarantee that the first few times you go through the procedure your tortillas will be less than satisfactory. Mexican women who make their own tortillas (these days, this is mostly in rural areas) go through an apprenticeship that lasts for years, beginning as little girls, to learn how to make a truly fine tortilla. For what it's worth though, we've found that Maseca flour usually gives the best results in terms of consistence and flavor (products made with Masaharina tend to go stale and rancid sooner, indicating that the oil content of this flour must be higher than Maseca's).
What to do if you really want to make tortillas from scratch
If you were truly to begin from scratch, you'd get some white corn grain and set it to low boil in a covered pot with some slaked lime or wood ashes. You can get this in Mexican open-air markets by asking for "cal," or "tequisquite." Much of the language employed to talk about corn, tortillas, and the process of making tortillas, is based on the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and I'll mention these terms as we go along. The process described above will loosen the "skins" (pericarp) of the kernels, and you'd find most of these skins floating at the top of the steep liquor next morning. This alkaline solution has the side effect of making bound niacin in the corn endosperm soluble, and therefore available as a nutrient (this is important to folks who depend on corn as their staple source of nutrients; in Mexico annual per capita consumption of tortillas is about 410 lb., or as you can see, a little over 1 lb. per day, and in rural areas it is estimated that tortillas provide about 70% of the caloric intake). You would discard the supernate and the steep liquor itself (called "nejayote"), then wash the remaining "naked" kernels (consisting mostly of pure starch) and embryos ("germs," where most of the oil is concentrated). However, if you wanted to avoid this whole process and start from this point on, you could look for 'hominy' in your local grocery store, since this is precisely what hominy is.
Next, you'd get hold of a grinding stone utensil (known in Mexico as 'metate,') and you'd begin slaving over the corn grain with a pestle and a jug of water by your side. In the course of grinding the grain you're homogenizing and gelatinizing the starch, protein and germ, and also somewhat dehydrating it; however, you must add water continuously to make the resulting mixture pliable. When you are done, you'll have a dough that you will work into small balls from which you'll shape your tortillas. These spheres are known as "testales." This step takes between half an hour to an hour, depending on how many tortillas you are making. If you would want to dispense with this step, then use the Maseca flour mentioned above. This is essentially the dough in dehydrated state, ready for you to rehydrate and shape your tortillas.
Shaping and cooking the tortilla is a key step, and the one where the greatest skill is involved. What you are trying to do is create as thin and round a patty of the dough as possible. As you work it, you will be further dehydrating the mixture. The trick is to lose only so much water in this step and in the next, which involves baking both sides of the tortilla for 30 to 60 seconds on a hot griddle, so that the resulting product has a specific water content when done (about 40% moisture, which is crucial), making it soft and pliable. The tortilla should puff as you bake it, but if air bubbles form in the dough as it bakes, or if is too wet and pasty, or too dry and burns, or is toasted as it bakes, then the resulting tortilla is ruined. As you can imagine, Indian women who mass-produce tortillas three times a day don't stop to think about baking time or moisture content, they have simply developed the knack to know when the dough is ready and how much baking to allow. Also, it is no easy matter to form a round tortilla in the limited amount of time you have between grinding/kneading the dough, patting it out, and having to lay it on the griddle before it dries excessively. Experienced Indian women in Mexico are a wonder to watch as they do this using nothing but their hands (no flat surface) as they pat out perfect circles between their palms. If you wanted to avoid this step, then you'd go buy a "tortilla press," which is a couple of round metal or wooden sheets that you press by means of a lever. You place a doughball on one of the sheets, press, then cut off the dough extruded from the press, leaving a round sheet of dough inside the press; OR you could go buy 'industrial tortillas' in the frozen foods section of your grocery store.
There is no industrial tortilla that can compare with the freshly baked and ready-to-eat article, as you might expect. To facilitate the mechanization of the process, a number of compromises are made. Most industrial processes begin with a flower base such as Maseca, create large batches of the dough, pass it through rollers to create the flattened cake, then actually cut out a perfectly round tortilla, which is then paraded through several series of conveyor belts, passing through an oven, and then open ventilated space to allow for cooling and water loss, before packing in plastic bags which are then frozen and shipped. The weak link in the whole process is that tortillas don't last in storage and lose their flavor in a hurry when aged/frozen. The main reason is that their oil content leads to them becoming sour, and the freezing process used in the US leads to water condensation on the tortillas themselves, which always makes them pasty and mushy when you try to use them again at room temperature. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal (May 10, 1996) indicated that the world market for tortillas is worth about $5 billion U. S. According to this article, even though Mexicans consume about 10 times as many tortillas per capita as U. S. consumers, the Mexican tortilla market is still dominated by small "tortillerias." In Mexico, packaged tortillas account for only 5 percent of sales. However, large flour-producing industries, such as Maseca and Bimbo, are predicting that "the end of tortilla subsidies in Mexico will transform the Mexican market, giving an advantage to U.S.-style marketing of plastic-bagged tortillas in supermarkets."
Now then, let's say that you've either made or purchased your tortillas and are ready to make your enchiladas. This is a dish whose name means that you've "chilified" some tortillas. "Chili" is derived from the Aztec name for what you call a "chile pepper," the fruit of various species of plants of the genus Capsicum. Following is a recipe for enchiladas that I give with some hesitation. It was collected from rural Indian women near the vicinity of Puebla, Mexico, and the instructions are sparce and most useful for cooks of whom great familiarity with Mexican cooking can be assumed (Recetario de Maiz, Colegio de Postgraduados, CEICADAR, 1990. Translation and all errors of same are my fault!)
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RED ENCHILADAS (Enchiladas Rojas)
Ingredients:
18 tortillas
8 dried red chilis (chile ancho, translator's note: Capsicum annum)
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1.5 cups cheese (translator's note, in US try Monterrey Jack or Muenster)
2 pepper seeds (translator's note: black pepper, or Piper nigrum)
1 stick cinammon
2 cloves
Radishes to suit
1 lettuce head
Cooking oil
Salt to suit
Preparation:
Dice onion and shred cheese
Clean and rinse chiles, grind together with clove, cinammon, garlic, pepper and salt.
Fry tortillas and dip in sauce prepared above, fill with cheese, roll, stack on tray and garnish with lettuce.
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Of course, if you wanted to dispense with the trouble, you could go buy frozen enchiladas in the frozen foods section of your grocery store, and then you are time ahead, but culinary experience far, far behind.
Two more related items for your interest. First, the recipe for tortillas as given by Indian women themselves (from above cited work), then a brief lexicon of words related to the tortilla making process.
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TORTILLAS
Ingredients:
4.25 pecks of white corn (Translator's note: 5 "maquilas")
100 grams (Translator's note: about 3.5 oz) limestone
Utensils:
Metate (Translator's note: stone mortar and pestle)
Tortilla press (Translator's note: _anyone_ can make a tortilla this way ;)
Plastic sheets of slightly larger diameter than tortilla press
Griddle
Preparation:
Cook corn in a can or pot with water and limestone (Translator's note, this takes hours, and is typically left overnight)
When the corn skins can be peeled remove from fire and add more water.
Cover and allow to "steam cook."
Rinse corn and grind to make dough.
Mix well and make small dough balls. Place on tortilla press between plastic sheets to avoid sticking. Press tortilla and bake on griddle.
Turn twice and remove when "puffed."
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Now then, if you're going to be looking at recipes involving tortillas, there are a number of words that are certain to come up. Following is a basic lexicon to help understand these:
TORTILLA - Name given by Spaniards to the corn-based flat-bread they found in use in Mexico. This literally means "smallish and flattened," (for instance, it is what a Spaniard would call an egg omelette). Native names differed, but in three major languages it was: TLAXCALLI (Nahuatl, the Aztec tongue), YET (Zapotec), WEJ (Maya).
CENTLI - Nahuatl for "corn." Ordinal number meaning literally "first," ETL (bean) is second, etc. Used as particle when distinguishing varieties of corn (as in cacahuaCENTLI, tepeCENTLI, etc.)
METATE - From Nahuatl "Metatl." Stone mortar used to grind corn. Made from basaltic stone. It turns out to be an essential part of the tortilla making process for a number of reasons. One is that as a soft volcanic stone, the basalt wears easily and actually helps to disrupt ungelatinized starch by becoming part of the dough, in small minute particles. This is so essential for the making of good dough that even in modern industria processes, the corn is ground with basaltic stone grinders. Second, this incorporated basaltic stone is thought to account for the excellent dental health and hygiene shown by Indians, whose teeth are cleaned abrasively as they eat tortillas.
NIXTAMAL - The "naked" corn grains, or "hominy" remaining after removing kernel skins in alkaline bath.
NEJAYOTE - The steep liquor in which corn grains are bathed to remove skins.
TONEUHCAYOTL - From Nahuatl: "our flesh," the dough made from the ground corn, known also by Spanish name "MASA." Reflecting both tha this was the common starting point for a number of essential staple foods (tortillas, tamales, etc.), and also the belief that human beings were made by the gods from corn dough (which I personally find more flattering than being made of dirt, as the myth of another small tribe elsewhere would have us believe
TESTAL - From Nahuatl: "testalli," the dough ball from which tortillas are patted out
COMAL - From Nahuatl: "comalli," the clay or metal griddle on which tortillas are baked
TENATE - From Nahuatl: "tenatl," the basket made from woven dried leaves that is used to keep tortillas warm after baking and before consumption
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I am also looking for recipes to prepare other type of tortillas, for example the nacho one, or the burrito one.
These aren't really "other types of tortillas." Nachos, for instance, are unknown in Mexico. The closest thing might be a "totopo" or perhaps a "tostada." A totopo is a tortilla that is made with salt in the dough and is then baked dry, rather than pliable. This toasted tortilla was made specifically for travellers, as it keeps without spoiling. A tostada is a thoroughly post-conquest confection (Indian cooking before the conquest did not include a number of ingredients/procedures that are now closely associated with "Mexican food," such as frying, cheeses, etc.) You make tostadas with a coarser dough than for tortillas. You make "chips" by shaping the dough and then deep-fat frying it. Deep-fat frying is a way of quickly dehydrating a food. Coarser dough allows for water vapor to escape the dough quickly and so minimizes air bubbles in the resulting "tostadas." These corn chips are pretty oily things, and this is essentially what Frito-Lay and similar outfits have invented and christened "Nachos" in the US.
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A burrito is a taco made with a wheat flour tortilla. A taco is our "sandwich," in other words it is a generic food item made by rolling up any ingredient that you please within a tortilla, just as you consider anything you slap in between two slices of bread to be a sandwich. That stiff concoction made with a greasy "saddle" shell that you call a taco in the US is a purely industrial invention unkown in Mexico. When the "tortilla" is made from wheat flour, producing a thick, white flat-bread, then the taco you make from it is a "burrito." Wheat flour tortillas and burritos are specific to northern Mexico and are unknown and/or disliked in central/southern Mexico, where corn rules. If you ask for a burrito in the latter region, you'd be asking for a four-legged beast. This wheat-flour tortilla is a post-conquest confection (the Spaniards introduced the wheat crop) and is probably based on imitation of the corn version, though this wheat flat bread is similar to Mediterranean flat-breads, such as "pita" bread. In fact, in southern Mexico, this wheat-flour flat bread is known as "arab bread."
For futher information on this topic see the FAQ on BURRITOS on this same subdirectory.)
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TORTILLAS
Flour Tortillas
Flour tortilla are a simple mixture of flour, fat (lard or vegetable shortening), salt and water. Despite what you may have read, flour tortillas are NOT made with a tortilla press. The dough is too soft and sticky and will not flatten without the assistance of skilled hands or (for the rest of us) a rolling pin (palote).
The best (and traditional) rolling pin (palote) is made of wood and is 14" - 18" long and about 1" in diameter.
Flour tortillas are made with wheat flour and in order for the tortilla to maintain its flattened shape the dough must be rolled until the gluten strands break down. Without rolling the ball of dough would just snap back into its prior shape.
Makes: 12 tortillas
I N G R E D I E N T S
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
3/4 teaspoon salt
about 3/4 cup very warm tap water
I N S T R U C T I O N S
Put the flour in a large bowl and rub the lard or shortening into the flour using your fingertips. Add the salt to the water to dissolve. Mix the water into the flour a small amount at a time until you form a stiff dough.
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and kneed it for about 10-15 minutes until it is elastic.
Divide the dough into 12 pieces and roll each one into a ball with the palm of your hands. Cover the pieces with plastic wrap while you work. When you are finished cover all the pieces and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
Roll out each ball on a lightly floured surface using a thin rolling pin. Rotate the tortilla one quarter with each roll to keep the shape even. (This takes a lot of practice so do not be disheartened if your first attempts don't make perfect round tortillas). Keep rolling until the tortilla is about 12".
Warm a comal over medium heat. Place one tortilla at a time on the surface (ungreased) and cook for about 45 seconds to 1 minute until the surface beings to blister and lightly brown. Turn the tortilla over and cook the other side for an additional minute.
Wrap the tortillas in a clean dish towel to keep them warm as you heat the rest.
Traditional Flour Tortilla Making
Flour tortillas are from the northern region of Mexico where wheat is grown rather than corn. Many skilled Mexican woman can toss the dough from hand to hand until it is almost 20" in diameter and paper thin. The tortillas are then heated on a hot comal the folded twice to form triangles. The folded tortillas are then eaten for either breakfast or the midday meal.
Lard
Even in Mexico the proper "fat" is controversial. Some say pork lard makes the best tortillas and more contemporary cooks say vegetable shortening. A combination of vegetable shortening and beef lard makes a flavorful combination.
CORN TORTILLAS
How to Make Homemade Corn Tortillas
Fresh corn tortillas are a fun meal project for adults and children.
I N G R E D I E N T S
2 cups masa harina
pinch of salt
1 cup warm water
Makes: 12- 6 inch tortillas
I N S T R U C T I O N S
1 Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture forms into a dough.
Dry masa flour
2 Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface such as a cutting board or your counter top. Knead the dough for about 3 to 4 minutes until it becomes smooth and no longer sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for about an hour.
Masa dough holding for 1 hour
3 Divide the tortilla dough into 12 equal size pieces. Keep the dough covered as you work. Take one piece at a time and roll it between your hands to form a ball.
Masa dough being rolled into a ball
4 Open the tortilla press and lay a piece of plastic wrap on the bottom of the press. Sit the ball of dough on the plastic wrap and flatten the dough by pressing down on it with the palm of your hand. Now lay a 2nd piece of plastic wrap on top of the dough.
Ball of masa dough, ready to press
5 Close the press and press down firmly a few times until the tortilla is flattened. The tortilla should be thin and round. This takes a little practice. They may not be "perfect" looking at first.
Pressing the masa dough in the tortilla press
Tortilla Press
A tortilla press is a simple metal or wooden object with a base, top, and handle. Balls of masa are placed in the center of the press, pressure applied and the dough is flattened into a round, flat tortilla.
Where To Buy
GourmetSleuth - We provide cast iron tortilla presses in 6.5" and 7.5" sizes as well as a complete line of Mexican specialties. View our catalog of Mexican Cooking Tools.
Epicurious definition
[MAH-sah ah-REE-nah]
The Spanish word for "dough," masa is the traditional dough used to make corn TORTILLAS. It's made with sun- or fire-dried corn kernels that have been cooked in limewater (water mixed with calcium oxide). After having been cooked, then soaked in the limewater overnight, the wet corn is ground into masa. Masa harina (literally "dough flour") is flour made from dried masa.
To Heat and Serve
Have a comal or frying pan on the stove top on "medium" high heat. Open the press and remove the tortilla while holding it between the two sheets of plastic wrap. Remove one side of the plastic then turn the tortilla onto a plate or directly onto the comal. Remove the other piece of plastic wrap. Heat the tortilla for about 1 minute on each side.
Completed fresh corn tortilla on a plate.
Cast Iron Comal
Used to heat corn tortillas. A version of 10" has a slightly raised lip and can also serve as a grill for fajitas.
MASA (Dough for tortillas and tamales)
Masa in Mexican means "dough". The masa is made from field corn, called maiz blanco or "cacahuazintle" [kaw-kaw-WAH-SEEN-til] which was dried, treated with a lime water solution, then ground. This page will describe the process of making masa. The masa can then be used for corn tortillas or for tamales.
The slaked corn (Nixtamal) can be used for making pozole (hominy).
Makes: 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 pounds
i n g r e d i e n t s
1 1/2 pounds (1 quart) dried white field corn
2 tablespoons "cal" slaked lime
d i r e c t i o n s
Clean the corn
Place the corn in a colander and rinse under cold water.
Prepare the lime mixture
Add 2 quarts of water to a large (at least 4 quart) noncorrosive pan. Place the pan over high heat and add the lime (cal) and stir until it is dissolved.
slaked lime (cal)
Boil the corn
Add the corn into the lime water, stirring gently. Use a slotted spoon and remove any kernels that float to the top of the water. Allow the water to boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. If you are making the dough for tortillas, allow to boil 2 minutes. If you are making tamale dough simmer for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the corn to soak. For tortilla dough allow to soak, covered, overnight. For tamale dough, allow to soak for an hour.
Wash the corn
This step is very important. If you don't rinse and clean the corn properly your dough will be yellow and taste like lime.
Pour the corn into a colander and place it under cold running water. Use both your hands and rub the corn between your hands to loosen any hulls still attached to the corn.
Continue until the corn is all white (except the tips). Drain the corn well. This cleaned, prepared corn is what is called "Nixtamal" or "Nixtamalado".
nixtamal - cleaned, damp corn
Pictured above you can see the little brown "heads" left on the corn. If you are making Pozole and you want the kernels to open (flower) then you need to "de-head" the kernals. De-heading simply means to pick off those little tips. This rather time-consuming step is optional and does not affect the flavor of the pozole, just the appearance.
stone metate y mano
This Stone Metate y Mano is available at GourmetSleuth.com. View
All Mexican Cooking Tools in our catalog. We sell molcajetes, tortilla presses, lemon squeezers, metates, all the essential Mexican products.
Victoria/Corona Plate-Style Grinder
This grinder is made by Corona (Columbia, South America). It attaches to your counter top or work surface. The standard version comes fitted with steel plates and costs about $40.00. Stone plates are a good add for a finer grind but are difficult to find. In Mexico and in South American only the steel plates are used and most people find that to be satisfactory for corn grinding.
Low hopper Grinder: $34.95
Nutrition
Masa Flour 1 - cup
Calories
416
Total fat (g) 4.3
Saturated fat (g)
Monounsaturated fat (g)
Polyunsaturated fat (g)
Dietary fiber (g) 0
Protein (g) 10.648
Carbohydrate (g) 86.9
Cholesterol (mg) 0
Sodium (mg) 5.7
Vitamin C (mg) 0
Related Articles
Tortilla Presses - Read More About Tortilla Press. Article shows the various types and how they are used.
Corn Tortillas - How to make homemade An illustrated guide to making your own corn tortillas..
Corn, Masa, Nixtamal - Learn about the history and significance of corn in Mexican life and cuisine.
Flour Tortillas - How to make flour tortillas
Grind the corn for tortilla dough
Metate y Mano
The traditional tool for grinding the nixtamal is the metate y mano. If you are an adventurous cook and don't mind a good work out then you'll enjoy using the metate. Depending on the size of your metate, place a handful or two of corn on the top surface. Use downward pressure on the mano and roll across the corn (like a rolling pin). Continue until the corn becomes finely pulverized. Repeat until all the corn has been ground.
Plate-Style Corn Mill (Molino)
While this is less labor intensive than the metate the corn mill (see photo) requires significant effort. Use the corn mill fitted with a stone plate. The stone plate, rather than a metal plate will produce the smoothest textured dough. Place the corn in the hopper and grind it through using the finest setting. The resulting mixture should be smooth and not gritty.
Once the corn is all ground add approximate 2/3 to 3/4 cup of water to the corn and mix to form medium-soft dough.
Food Processor
You can use your food processor to prepare the dough for tamales but it does not get quite fine enough for tortilla dough. Grind the corn in small batches, pulsing the corn 5 or 6 times. Then let the processor run continuously until the corn is the proper consistency (see next paragraph).
Grind the corn for tamale dough
Spread the drained corn onto a towel and pat dry with another towel. Use either of the tools described above and grind the dried corn. If you are using the plate-style grinder, use the medium or medium-fine setting. The ground corn should be a consistency of damp hominy grits. Add approximately 2/3 cups water to form a stiff dough.
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Authentic Mexican Tortillas
Ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 3/4 cups of vegetable shortening
- 3/4 cups hot water
Directions:
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Either by hand or with a pastry cutter, cut in the shortening till the mixture is crumbly. 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 cups hot water to the mixture, or just enough to make the ingredients look moist. 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 for flour until the dough forms a soft round shape. The dough is ready to rool 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. Take the dough, and pull it apart into 10 to 12 balls. Lightly flour your rolling area, and roll each ball with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thickness. Place each tortilla on a medium hot cast iron skillet. Cook for about 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until tortilla does not look doughy.
For more recipies like this visit: breadrecipe.com
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