I've always felt like somewhat of a failure due to the fact that I could only make fresh corn tortillas, not fresh flour tortillas. Granted, I had never tried to make flour tortillas, but the prospect seemed intimidating for some reason. When I made my awesome carnitas, though, I came to realize that I needed to add flour-tortilla-making to my skill set. Thus, I turned to my friend J (and through her to her awesome mom, whose kick-ass horchata recipe I had already fallen in love with) for help finding the best recipe to start with.
J's mom's tortillas became the star of our Mexican feast (along with a batch of perfect margaritas, of course...). The recipe starts with 2 cups of unbleached, all-purpose and about 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
With a fork, mix in 1/4 cup of olive oil. (I imagine I will someday try using lard instead, but I am not one to question the genius of J's mom, and these turned out perfect... so it's a nice bonus that they're a bit healthier than the pig-fat version.)
A half cup of boiling hot water is added and stirred with a fork to combine until the dough is cool enough to knead with your hands. After a few minutes, you have a ball of really nice dough.
Small balls of dough can then be pinched off and rolled out nice and thin. (The recipe seems to make about 8-10 tortillas when I do it...)
The cooking is much like that for corn tortillas. You start on one side, cooking just until it starts to dry and set enough to flip...
... then flip and allow the second side to cook until getting good and blistery...
When you flip back to the first side, the tortillas start to puff up into a balloon, which makes you feel quite the sense of satisfaction... if you're me, that is... (The one below is just starting to puff, but I was in the weeds so I didn't get enough pictures of the puffing part...) Cook on this side until you have good puff-age and/or both sides are good and blistery and starting to char...
That's it. Repeat with the remaining dough, throw on the table with the rest of your yummy food, and enjoy.
If I'd known that flour tortillas were this easy to make, I would have conquered my fear long ago. Good stuff.
J's mom's tortillas became the star of our Mexican feast (along with a batch of perfect margaritas, of course...). The recipe starts with 2 cups of unbleached, all-purpose and about 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
With a fork, mix in 1/4 cup of olive oil. (I imagine I will someday try using lard instead, but I am not one to question the genius of J's mom, and these turned out perfect... so it's a nice bonus that they're a bit healthier than the pig-fat version.)
A half cup of boiling hot water is added and stirred with a fork to combine until the dough is cool enough to knead with your hands. After a few minutes, you have a ball of really nice dough.
Small balls of dough can then be pinched off and rolled out nice and thin. (The recipe seems to make about 8-10 tortillas when I do it...)
The cooking is much like that for corn tortillas. You start on one side, cooking just until it starts to dry and set enough to flip...
... then flip and allow the second side to cook until getting good and blistery...
When you flip back to the first side, the tortillas start to puff up into a balloon, which makes you feel quite the sense of satisfaction... if you're me, that is... (The one below is just starting to puff, but I was in the weeds so I didn't get enough pictures of the puffing part...) Cook on this side until you have good puff-age and/or both sides are good and blistery and starting to char...
That's it. Repeat with the remaining dough, throw on the table with the rest of your yummy food, and enjoy.
If I'd known that flour tortillas were this easy to make, I would have conquered my fear long ago. Good stuff.
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