How to Make Corn Tortillas - Food Wishes

hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with corn tortillas that's right there are a few recipes simpler than homemade corn tortillas which is why they take years to master and I know that sounds counterintuitive but that's usually the way it is with super basic recipes like bread pasta and other things that only have a couple ingredients since those really are dependent on perfecting the right technique of course having said that even a lousy homemade corn tortilla is going to be way better than those round pieces of cardboard from the market so with that let's go ahead and get started by mixing up our dough and that's going to start with some corn flour but not just any corn flour we're looking for one sold is instant corn masa flour also sometimes sold is masa harina and generally in American supermarkets at least it comes in a white bag with yellow and green lettering and I'll get more info about this on the blog but the difference between this and regular corn flour is that this is produced with corn it's cook first whereas regular corn flour is simply ground dry corn which would not work out the same in this recipe and then to our masa flour all we need to add to make the dough would be some salt as well ask some hot tap water all right I've tried this with cold water and I've tried this with boiling water and it's been my experience that hot tap water works the best and what we'll do once that's been added is simply stir everything together with our fingers until it all sort of pulls together at which point a lot of people stop but I don't I'm a big believer in giving this a couple minutes and needing to sort of smooth it out and by the way since corn doesn't have any gluten this dough is not really gonna feel the same as you needed as a wheat dough would we're sort of starts to get some lust this summer laughs to starts to get sort of elastic but nevertheless it's the same sort of kneading motion and like I said I'll do that for a couple minutes and by the way it's probably super obvious but I'll tell you anyway if this seems too dry add some water and if it seems to add add a little more flour because what we're trying to end up with is something with roughly the texture of playdough so this is looking just about perfect but like I said if this was too wet and sticking to my hands I would add some more flour or if it was crumbling apart I would add some more liquid but like I said this was just right and then what we'll do once our dough is formed is take a damp kitchen towel or some paper towels and place it over our dough so it doesn't dry out because what we really need to do is let this sit for about 20 to 30 minutes before we use it okay some people don't think you have to those people are crazy because I think this resting is a key step and while that does rest let me move on and show you what else we're going to need and we'll start with one of these cast iron tortilla presses which really do make this whole operation way way faster and easier and these are relatively affordable you're talking like 20 bucks or so and when you factor in how much money you're gonna save on tortillas at the store it totally pays for itself and then besides that we're also going to need a couple pieces of plastic which I've cut into rounds the same size as the press and while plastic wrap will work I do recommend cutting up a zip top bag since the plastic is much thicker and easier to work with so our press is ready and our plastics prepped and then besides that we're also going to need a nice clean kitchen towel that I placed over this pie dish and we'll discuss this further in a few minutes but basically we're gonna put our cooked tortillas into this and believe it or not that's where all the magics gonna happen but like I said we'll get to that for now let me go ahead and show you how to form these tortillas so assuming our dough is sat for at least 20 minutes we'll pull off a little piece enough to roll into about an inch and a half ball okay if you're into weights that's gonna be about one ounce or about twenty-eight twenty-nine grams if you happen to be of the metric persuasion and what we'll do is place that in the center of one piece of plastic and we'll give it a little press and then we will cover that with our second piece of plastic and that's it the top of the press goes over like this and I will use this arm to apply the pressure and if everything goes according to plan you're gonna end up with a perfectly round beautifully thin tortilla and as you remember from physics class the more pressure you apply the thinner this is gonna get all right so that's looking pretty good right there but that was easy part now for the dismount in the placing in the pan so what we need to do is peel off that top piece and then I'm going to turn that plastic around like this and then line up my index finger of the opposite hand right along the edge here and gently turn it over and carefully peel off that second piece of plastic and then very important we're going to transfer this into the pan with our palm remaining up and I'm gonna do this in slow motion and as soon as that first edge catches the pan and we can see it's gonna lay in flat we simply let that slide off our palm and that's it okay if you throw this into the pan over hand like me going out for one of my famous tomahawk dunks it can and probably will stick to the pan so I'll show you that again but we want to gently lay it in as shown and then we're gonna let that first side cook for about 30 to 45 seconds before turning it over which is what I'm gonna do right now and then what we'll do is give that second side about a minute before we flip it over to perform the old press and puff so what we'll do is give that second side about 60 seconds and then flip it over and give it a little press with the spatula and hopefully those layers separate we get a little bit of puff although sometimes you gotta press it twice there we go see that we got a little bit of puff and I will let that go for about 30 seconds like that at which point I'll flip it over one last time and let it cook for just a few more seconds and that's it we just made a homemade corn tortilla and by the way your first few are never gonna come out as good as your last few that's just the way it works and then what we'll do once that's done is quickly transferred into our napkin line dish and quickly wrap it back up and then we'll go ahead and continue pressing and making our tortillas stacking and wrapping them in this napkin until we're done all right so let's watch this one more time we will carefully lay our tortilla in palm up letting it gently slide off our hand and then we'll give it that first side about 30 to 45 seconds at which point we flip it over and give the second side about a minute and then everybody's favorite part we flip it over and give it the old press and puff and for whatever reason as you do these they usually get better and better and you can see we got pretty much full puffins here and by the way that's why I think it's so important to let your dough rest I think it significantly increases your chances to get a perfect puff but anyway once that pops I usually flip it back over for a few more seconds I don't like I said we'll transfer it into our napkin and you'll notice is these are coming out of the pan they're gonna seem a little bit drying a little bit stiff but as they sit steaming with each other in this napkin an amazing transformation happens which we will get to but not quite yet because I wanted to take a minute and show you what to do if you don't have a tortilla press all right another method that will totally work as pressing this with some kind of powder pan or as long as it has a flat bottom you should be fine and once flattened it should look exactly like one that came out of the regular press so basically this method works just as well it's just not as fast and easy so there's one alternative but wait there's more another method would be to press these between two cookbooks that we placed on a chair and then all we need to do is sit on that to flatten it out and as you're about to see that works out very nicely although if you do use this method we don't call them tortillas anymore the refer to as tortillas so there you go two very effective non tortilla press methods but anyway one way or another we'll go ahead and press and cook the rest of our dough stacking in a wrapping as we go and then once we're done we don't enjoy these right away okay we have to leave these wrapped up in that napkin stacked and steaming for at least 15 to 20 minutes and what's going to happen during that time is they're gonna go for something that's sort of stiff and dry to these beautifully soft and supple and flexible tortillas and I was going to say just like from the store but they're way better than that so please make sure you give these enough time in your napkin all right you are after all the Big Papi of making sure these are floppy and even though mine were they were still a little warm so I wrapped them back up and let those cool to room temp which is my preferred method to get the full effect and yes if you want to spend a few extra bucks they do sell these insulated containers made especially for holding tortillas which does the same thing here's the napkin bus and this has always worked out so well for me I've never felt the need to buy one although those are nice for keeping a whole bunch warm during service speaking of which once he's our room temp they are ready to serve either by steaming to make tacos or enchiladas or whatever or of course we could fry those crisp in a pan to make tostadas but I didn't do any of those I just heated up a couple in this dry pan which generally you only want to do for a few seconds just to warm them through if you do them too long like I did the outsides are going to start to crisp up which is still fine but anyway I warmed up a couple of those and about 90 seconds later I was garnishing a pretty amazing duck taco so I could get some kind of eating shot here and know I'm not doing a video for duck tacos that is just some chopped up fried duck confit and as the old cliche goes there is nothing like homemade fill in the blank in this case corn tortillas but it really is so true just a completely different thing altogether then that stuff from the supermarket that was some brand you can actually stand a table with and by the way I thought I'd overcook my tortillas and they were gonna be too stiff to make a taco but what will happen is the moisture from your filling will sort of soften him up so this actually did come out fairly fantastic but anyway that's it my technique for making corn tortillas what I'm gonna do now is go ahead and finish this taco and hopefully what you're gonna do is go find some of this masa flour and make your own batch of homemade corn tortillas so I really do hope you give these a try soon head over to food wishes calm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 800,926

Keywords: Tortillas, tortilla, Corn, fresh, homemade, masa, harina, taco, chef, john, food, wishes, gluten free, grains, cooking, recipe, Mexican, tex-mex

Id: MH2f5C0z0Kg

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2018