No local tortilleria? Make your own tortillas!
May 4, 2011 
14 Comments
If there’s one major national cuisine that isn’t very strongly represented in Canada’s food scene, it’s Mexican. There are a few Mexican restaurants and a couple of Latin American food markets in Toronto – and burritos are certainly a common sight – but the full range and depth of regional Mexican cooking is thoroughly underrepresented, and many essential ingredients can be hard, if not impossible, to track down. (If anyone has a reliable source for epazote in Toronto, please share it with me!)
One of the cornerstones of Mexican cuisine, of course, is the corn tortilla. No, not the saddle-shaped deep-fried kind, but the fresh, soft kind. It’s becoming easier to find them frozen, but quality can be highly inconsistent. So a recent taco craving had me looking to make my own.
As with all cornerstone preparations, the devil is in the details. Tortillas look easy at first: simply mix masa harina with water, roll into balls, flatten, and cook on a griddle. But there’s a little more finesse to it than that. A properly made tortilla should puff as it cooks, and there are a number of factors that determine whether or not this happens, including how much water the dough contains, how thin the tortilla is, and how hot the griddle is.
Because of these factors, my first results were less than stellar, but I learned from the experience and had much more success on the second try. I think the main thing I was doing wrong was adding too little water: my second batch of tortillas had 230 grams of masa harina and 400 grams of water, which felt like a pretty high ratio, but produced superior results. (Probably my favourite thing about working with dough made from corn is that, because corn has no gluten, it doesn’t seem to get sticky the same way wheat dough does.) Even once that adjustment had been made, it took a couple of tries to get my tortillas to puff consistently: like crêpes, the first couple were just warm-ups.
I’ve heard that the best tortillas are not made from masa harina, but from fresh nixtamalized corn, but to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never tasted one. For now, I’m satisfied with the ones I made here, filled simply with some chorizo, salsa, queso panela, green onions and cilantro.
Nice! I’d like to give these a try soon. Now that I know that the latin american store on Somerset hides their chiles under the counter! Sigh Ottawa!
Did you do these with a rolling pin? Or a press? They look so perfect!
Thanks, Lana! I guess I forgot to mention that: I did them with a tortilla press. My previous batch was made just by flattening them with a frying pan on the counter, then touching them up with a rolling pin; the tortilla press was much easier. When shopping for a press, cast iron is preferable to aluminum. In both cases, I flattened them between two halves of a Ziploc freezer bag.
Where did you find the masa harina? I’ve not looked everywhere around here, but in a fair few places. The corn and wheat flour tortilla recipes I found were just not up to scratch, either.
Actually, the bag I have now came from La Perola in Toronto, but I’ve seen it here in Guelph, both at one of the local Asian markets (which carries a good number of Latin American products as well) and at the big Zehr’s. Next time you’re in town, you can pick some up!
Really nice! Have you read David Arnold’s “treaty” on nixtamalization? Really a good read!
Thanks, Roberto! I did read Dave Arnold’s piece on nixtamalization. It’s a really cool process, but I’m not quite ready to start grinding my own nixtamal… at least not yet!
just thought i’d mention that bulk barn (in orangeville at least) has the masa flour.
Thanks, Adam. It’s been showing up in more and more places around here, too: Zehr’s even has it now.
Hi Matthew,
Did you ever find epazote in Toronto (dried or fresh?)? Or Guelph for that matter. Making black beans and all the good recipes seem to be calling for it.
Sadly, I don’t think I’ve happened across it yet, but I haven’t made a point of looking in a while. If you find it somewhere, please let me know!