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Flour Tortillas

A wheat dough made with fat and water hot from the kettle, rested, then rolled thin — nothing like the pressed masa it sits beside.

Not vegetarian — contains lard.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE WATER GOES IN HOT AND THE DOUGH IS RESTED BEFORE ROLLING. Hot water melts the lard through the flour instead of leaving it in lumps, and it relaxes the gluten as it goes, so the dough comes together slack and extensible rather than springy. Made with cold water the same ingredients fight the rolling pin and spring back every time, and the tortilla ends up small and thick. Then half an hour's rest under a cloth finishes the job: rolled straight away it still shrinks, rested it stays where it is put.
  2. THIS IS A ROLLED DOUGH, WHICH IS THE WHOLE DIFFERENCE FROM THE CORN ONE. Wheat has gluten and will take a rolling pin happily; a press would squash it and spring it back. So it is rolled from the middle outwards, turned a quarter after every pass, and the rounds come out thin and even and considerably larger than any corn tortilla.
  3. THE FAT IS WHAT MAKES IT FOLD WITHOUT CRACKING. Eighty grams to four hundred of flour is enough to shorten the dough so a cooked tortilla will wrap round a filling and stay wrapped. With less it bakes into something closer to a flatbread, which tastes fine and splits the moment it is rolled round anything.
  4. THEY ARE COOKED PALE AND BLISTERED, NOT BROWNED. A medium griddle, under a minute a side, and what you want is a scatter of brown blisters on a mostly pale surface. Taken further the whole round goes crisp and brittle and will crack along every fold.
  5. Flour, salt and baking powder stirred together in a bowl.
  6. The lard rubbed in with the fingertips until it has disappeared and the flour feels faintly damp.
  7. The HOT water poured in all at once and stirred with a knife until it comes together in a shaggy mass.
  8. Turned out and kneaded 3 to 4 minutes to a smooth, soft, slightly tacky dough.
  9. Divided into 10 balls, covered with a cloth, and RESTED 30 MINUTES. This is not optional.
  10. A griddle set over a medium heat, dry.
  11. One ball rolled out on a lightly floured surface, from the centre outwards, turning a quarter turn between passes, to a round about 22 cm across and barely 2 mm thick.
  12. Laid on the griddle and given 40 to 50 SECONDS: it will bubble up in patches.
  13. Turned and given another 30 to 40 seconds, to a pale surface with brown BLISTERS and no overall colour.
  14. Into a folded tea towel to steam soft while the rest are rolled and cooked.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes