Tortillas, flour
Ursy asked me to post this one. It's a vegetarian recipe--or even vegan, depending on which shortening you use.
I took a tortilla recipe off the internet and have modified it a lot to get this one. The original called for MUCH baking powder and salt; I remember thinking, "wow, that sounds like biscuits; how hard can it be?" Then as I kneaded that first batch of dough, I thought smugly, "ha!! this IS easy! I am never going to be a slave to the grocery store again!" lol, ya hafta know, smugness is a fatal flaw...
...that first tortilla hit the skillet and POOF!!!! hard round flat salty cardboard biscuit!!! OYYYY, lol! But hey, if ya want a recipe for salty cardboard biscuits... *wink* NOT.
*Gringa Girl Tortillas*
2 cups flour
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt (slowly working my way down to using less)
1/2 teaspoon sugar (tis a dough conditioner)
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
3 Tablespoons shortening (margarine but I bet butter would be SCRUMPTIOUSLY delicate,
mmmm)
1/2 cup water (more or less)
Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly; cut in the margarine and mix it until the the crumbs are fine and soft (this takes very thorough mixing and is easiest to do with your hand). Then mix in the water a little at a time until you get a soft dough. If it is sticky as you knead it, add more flour. If it rips a lot, add more water. Your goal is a very soft stretchable satiny dough. Knead for at least five minutes; cover and let rest up to forty-five
minutes, but no longer.
Pinch off small balls of dough, one inch or less in diameter (2.5 centimeters). Form them into round balls one at a time (keep the rest of the dough covered), coat them in flour, and then roll them and stretch them into thin rounds, sprinkling flour on them or your surface again as you need to. They should give you tortillas about five or six inches in diameter until you get good at rolling them very thin, then you will get 8 inch tortillas. (Tis actually easier to make them nicely round if you can make bigger tortillas, but you need a bigger skillet or a griddle for that because if the tortillas are not flat on the bottom of the skillet, they cook unevenly and get very crackly centers with undone edges, so I am sticking with eight-inch right now.)
As you roll the tortillas, make sure you keep them well-floured. That is THE secret that makes them stretch and roll properly without getting holes. Pay special attention to the edges and get them as thin as you can without wrinkling the tortillas. When the texture is right, the tortilla you pick up to lay in the skillet should drape across your hand like cool dry translucent fabric. (Translucency takes practice; don't get discouraged!)
Cook them one at a time in a hot dry skillet. As soon as you see bubbles forming on the surface, flip the tortilla and let it cook on the other side, then get it out of the pan and stack it on a plate. They don't take long to cook; if they
get very brown, the fire is too hot. If they don't get brown spots at all and they also don't get done in a minute or two, the fire is too low.
(I gave up on using a pancake turner to flip them--tis much faster and easier to pick up the skillet, tilt them part-way out and then just grab and flip them--if your fingers burn, the flame is too high... or you are too slow. *wink*)
Stack 'em all up on a plate as you cook them and then cover the stack with aluminum foil when you are done. The tortillas will soften some overnight from the heat and moisture the foil keeps in. Don't be discouraged if your first attempts are rather, um, crackly... just throw them in the skillet, melt some cheddar on them and serve cheese crisps (quesadillas)!
Tortillas are one of those basic foods, like biscuits or noodles, that is very forgiving. You pick up the hang of it after a few attempts (although I cannot just stretch them out like traditional Mexican cooks do, I do have to roll them), and then you just keep getting better. They're way cheap and easy to make as long as you can handle having the stove on for so long--the flour cost me 20 cents, the margarine 6 cents, the rest maybe a dime (well, a nickel, but I like to allow for sales tax). The rest of the cost is the gas for the stove (which is included in my rent) and my time--which is dedicated to cooking and cleaning, so it all works out. An equivalent weight of storebought tortillas would be $2.19 and would not taste as good and would not make Storm feel as loved and well-taken care of, and I would have to buy three of them (or more) to get through a week, so $6.57 plus 8% sales tax, compared to $1.08 including sales tax--no contest. *grin*
I took a tortilla recipe off the internet and have modified it a lot to get this one. The original called for MUCH baking powder and salt; I remember thinking, "wow, that sounds like biscuits; how hard can it be?" Then as I kneaded that first batch of dough, I thought smugly, "ha!! this IS easy! I am never going to be a slave to the grocery store again!" lol, ya hafta know, smugness is a fatal flaw...
...that first tortilla hit the skillet and POOF!!!! hard round flat salty cardboard biscuit!!! OYYYY, lol! But hey, if ya want a recipe for salty cardboard biscuits... *wink* NOT.
*Gringa Girl Tortillas*
2 cups flour
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt (slowly working my way down to using less)
1/2 teaspoon sugar (tis a dough conditioner)
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
3 Tablespoons shortening (margarine but I bet butter would be SCRUMPTIOUSLY delicate,
mmmm)
1/2 cup water (more or less)
Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly; cut in the margarine and mix it until the the crumbs are fine and soft (this takes very thorough mixing and is easiest to do with your hand). Then mix in the water a little at a time until you get a soft dough. If it is sticky as you knead it, add more flour. If it rips a lot, add more water. Your goal is a very soft stretchable satiny dough. Knead for at least five minutes; cover and let rest up to forty-five
minutes, but no longer.
Pinch off small balls of dough, one inch or less in diameter (2.5 centimeters). Form them into round balls one at a time (keep the rest of the dough covered), coat them in flour, and then roll them and stretch them into thin rounds, sprinkling flour on them or your surface again as you need to. They should give you tortillas about five or six inches in diameter until you get good at rolling them very thin, then you will get 8 inch tortillas. (Tis actually easier to make them nicely round if you can make bigger tortillas, but you need a bigger skillet or a griddle for that because if the tortillas are not flat on the bottom of the skillet, they cook unevenly and get very crackly centers with undone edges, so I am sticking with eight-inch right now.)
As you roll the tortillas, make sure you keep them well-floured. That is THE secret that makes them stretch and roll properly without getting holes. Pay special attention to the edges and get them as thin as you can without wrinkling the tortillas. When the texture is right, the tortilla you pick up to lay in the skillet should drape across your hand like cool dry translucent fabric. (Translucency takes practice; don't get discouraged!)
Cook them one at a time in a hot dry skillet. As soon as you see bubbles forming on the surface, flip the tortilla and let it cook on the other side, then get it out of the pan and stack it on a plate. They don't take long to cook; if they
get very brown, the fire is too hot. If they don't get brown spots at all and they also don't get done in a minute or two, the fire is too low.
(I gave up on using a pancake turner to flip them--tis much faster and easier to pick up the skillet, tilt them part-way out and then just grab and flip them--if your fingers burn, the flame is too high... or you are too slow. *wink*)
Stack 'em all up on a plate as you cook them and then cover the stack with aluminum foil when you are done. The tortillas will soften some overnight from the heat and moisture the foil keeps in. Don't be discouraged if your first attempts are rather, um, crackly... just throw them in the skillet, melt some cheddar on them and serve cheese crisps (quesadillas)!
Tortillas are one of those basic foods, like biscuits or noodles, that is very forgiving. You pick up the hang of it after a few attempts (although I cannot just stretch them out like traditional Mexican cooks do, I do have to roll them), and then you just keep getting better. They're way cheap and easy to make as long as you can handle having the stove on for so long--the flour cost me 20 cents, the margarine 6 cents, the rest maybe a dime (well, a nickel, but I like to allow for sales tax). The rest of the cost is the gas for the stove (which is included in my rent) and my time--which is dedicated to cooking and cleaning, so it all works out. An equivalent weight of storebought tortillas would be $2.19 and would not taste as good and would not make Storm feel as loved and well-taken care of, and I would have to buy three of them (or more) to get through a week, so $6.57 plus 8% sales tax, compared to $1.08 including sales tax--no contest. *grin*