Urban Pioneer
• Feb. 18, 2006 - Tortillas
I love them! I do all sorts of things with them, but I just cant
seem to make them (like I want to). Like tonight, I am out
of torillas, , but since I just decided to have Chicken Fajitas at 5pm
(after all we hadnt had these in like a year and that is not a
exaggeration). I didnt want to run out to the store, so I go look in
one of my handy dandy cookbooks and dig up a recipe. I scan down
real quick to make sure I have all the ingredients and other tricky
directions and what is this, needs to be refrigerated for 4 hours and
then brought back to room temperature, you gotta be kidding me.
So I decided to skip the refrigeration part and rolled them out.
Do you know how hard it is to make a nice circle? You would think
with all the pizza dough that I have rolled out that this would be a
cinch, but no, instead it started looking like one of my pie
crusts. I strongly dislike making pie crusts. I cheat and
buy, it is the one thing that I dont like making. Anyway back to
my tortillas, they looked more like the shape of a bear skin rug
than a circle.
All this to say, does the refrigeration really make that much difference? Is there a trick to this? Anybody?
Thanks!
kay
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• Feb. 18, 2006 - Tortilla recipe
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4-6 Tbsp. vegetable shortening or lard
about 1 1/4 cups warm water
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Add vegetable shortening or lard. Or use a combination of half lard, half shortening. Use a fork or a pastry cutter to cut in the shortening or just do it the old fashioned way and use your hands.
Next add warm water a little at a time until your dough is soft and not sticky. You do not need very hot water. Knead the dough for a few minutes.
Now you will pull off pieces of dough to form about 12 small dough balls. Let them rest for at least 10 minutes, longer if you like. This is a good time to heat up the pan. You will want to set it at medium to high heat. If it is too hot the tortillas will cook too fast.
Now you can roll out the dough with your rolling pin. It is a good idea to dust each ball with a little flour just before you roll them out. Lay the rolling pin
in the center of the dough ball and roll up, center and roll down. It is good to lift the dough and turn it. Again, rolling pin in the center and roll. Roll them out fairly thin.Lay your tortilla on the hot pan. It takes just a few seconds to cook. Flip to the other side. When they are done it should have lots of nice brown speckles. Place them in a towel. If you would like you can use a tortilla warmer to keep them warm longer. They are ready to be served!
And if you want a press to make them easier, here is one that's pretty cheap.
http://www.texastastes.com/p869.htm?OVRAW=tortilla&OVKEY=tortilla&OVMTC=standard