How To: Making Flour Tortillas
For our culture class this week, our cute little teacher Irma, took us to see how flour tortillas were made, since those are our favorite kind--they are much better than corn. We just waltzed up into this tortilleria (tortilla factory) and they thought we were pretty entertaining just to look and laugh at. We watched these four tortilla makers work hard to prepare their dough for the day.
Each one of these dough blobs is weighed and will make about a half tray of rolled tortilla dough balls...a.k.a....a LOT of tortillas.
The dough blobs are placed in this pan, and then stuck into that 'cutting machine' where the dough is flattened into the pan and cut into even little proportions of dough ready to roll into balls.
Here are the trays of the dough balls that they both roll by hand after the prepared dough blob is cut into even proportions. Remember, one dough blob can make half a tray of tortillas balls, and there were a lot of dough blobs. Also, if you notice behind her, there are racks and racks of trays full of dough balls ready to make into flat cooked tortillas.
Rolling the dough balls is a skill, you must roll them the right way, or else air bubbles can get inside or the dough will stick to your hands and slow you down. The best way to roll them is to form your hand like a claw, and roll them on the table very fast.
We left the tortilleria, and headed back to Irma's house to make some flour tortillas of our own. Here we are all ready to go!
Our ingredients consisted of 1Kilo of flour (about 1/2 of a pound), 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 cup of canola oil, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 2 cups of warm water.
First step is to sift the flour and baking soda together.
Next step is to pour the oil in and mix well with the flour and baking powder.
Add the salt and then say cheese.
Mix some more, and add the water until the dough comes to a good dough like consistency, not too sticky, but not too dry either. You may not need all of the water, and be careful not to burn your hands with the hot water.
Once the mixing is complete, put the dough in a warm area for 30 minutes to settle and rise and do all that stuff that tortilla dough is supposed to do.
Get out your dough and roll into tablespoon sized balls.
Don't forge the proper way to roll the dough!
If you have a tortilla press, go ahead and use it..if not, just squish the dough flat like you would a pizza crust, then peel off the table or plastic wrap and take it to the hot griddle.
Once your tortillas are on the griddle, they act a bit like pancakes, when they seem solid on top or crispy around the edges, go ahead and flip them, and then repeat until they feel and look like tortillas.
I look happy in this picture, but really the tortilla is burning my little hands, Ouch!!!!
Once the flour tortillas were cool enough to hold, we just topped them with jelly instead of going all out and making tacos. Tortillas con mermelada is actually a sweet treat that little kids here enjoy as a snack. Yummmy!! I cannot wait to make flour tortillas at home, and maybe even some whole wheat flour tortillas!
Only 5 Mexican Days left!
-Sara Jacqueline
