How to make the Best Authentic Flour Tortillas | 4 Ingredient Tortillas

you know that one feeling you get when you pull on a pair of pants that just came out of the dryer well if you want to give that feeling to your taco or burrito you need to make some traditional flour tortillas hot off the cast-iron four things we need to cover in this flour tortilla video number one is the authentic flour tortilla with lard number two is some breakfast taco and burrito creations then we're going to talk about a version with butter instead of lard and then finally we're gonna talk about my top mistakes to avoid for perfect at home tortillas so I've said authentic or traditional flour tortilla but how do I know what authentic or traditional is well I went to one of the prophets of Mexican cuisine Diana Kennedy a 97 year old kick-ass of a woman who has studied Mexican cuisine all over the country wrote many cookbooks and received many many awards kind of dope right and Diana even said it herself read my books and learn please what are you going to do when I'm gone so today we're making Diana Kennedy proud by learning how to make some traditional flour tortillas made with lard the only thing that I change from her recipe is I lower the amount of fat content but other than that the same base recipe is the same let's get cooking flour tortillas are really as simple as flour fat salt and water though the one fat source that is traditionally used is Lord which is going to be rendered out pork fat there are other substitutions that can apply but for traditional versions pork lard is used and lard is actually one of these staple fats used in Mexican cooking when I was down there we use it to make tamales it was always used to fry things up like refried beans and it is a delicious fat for cooking just art with these tortillas we're gonna get our scale and put a large mixing bowl on top add 450 grams of bread flour to that we're gonna add 80 grams of Lord or your fat choice I'll show you guys what butter looks like in a couple of minutes now this is the one part that I changed from Diana Kennedy's recipe she recommends using around 115 grams of pork fat but I made them with that amount and I really feel that it was unnecessary so I dropped it down to around 80 I mean if you could still get all the flavor of the flour tortilla but have a little bit less calories I'm all on board for that now you're going to start pinching the lard and the flour in between your hands and fingers and this is going to coat each of those pieces of particles of flour and help give us that really tender kind of flour tortilla make sure you really spend some good time with this get it into like a nice pebbly kind of loose sand consistency and then we can talk about adding our water so get out 250 milliliters or 1 cup of water and to that we're gonna add 5 grams of salt and then stir that to completely dissolve it gradually add the water and salt mixture into the flour and definitely don't add this all at once I usually add about 3/4 of a cup start mixing it together my hands and then I'll come in and add a little bit more depending on how the dough is feeling you want that dough to come together kind of shaggy like but not necessarily super wet and sticky like a high hydration sourdough when the dough has started to form you can turn this out onto your cutting board or floured counter and we're gonna start working this until it is completely smooth now at this point I realized I probably could have added a tiny bit more water to this batch but no worries what we're gonna do is just if there's any like floating off flecks of dough that just aren't really combining with your recipe just get rid of those don't and bother trying to incorporate them cuz it'll just dry out your dough further that being said don't get carried away with adding a bunch of water this will actually come together just fine and I would have preferred to probably err on the side of a slightly drier dough for this rather than ain't overly wet one now you just need to knead this for about four to five minutes until the dough is completely homogeneous completely smooth on the outside make sure you set like a solid timer four to five minutes is longer than you think I feel like in most cases and that is gonna be the key to getting this dough completely smooth and ready to read see how the dough is completely smooth it's not sticky at all this is when we are know we're done and you can wrap it up in some plastic wrap then you want to let this dough rest for at least 20 minutes and one that is gonna do is relax everything so it's much easier to cut into pieces roll out those flour tortillas later on this is 30 minutes later always weigh out how much your dough is so then you can decide how big you want to cut your pieces into and you can see this dough is completely different texture wise it's really supple and easy to work with that is the power of letting it rest before you start maneuvering it again for me there's kind of two flour tortilla sizes that I like to make number one is going to be a burrito size I've found that around 75 to 80 grams it's gonna give you a nice piece of dough to work with that you can roll out very very thin the other size that I like to make is small ones which are just about 25 grams they give you these nice little small tortillas that you can use for like breakfast tacos or just regular tacos or anything really but they're just kind of nice and small with all the tortillas weighed out what we're gonna do is place a damp towel over them and roll them up what we're looking for is these nice smooth balls of dough to actually roll these out I wouldn't say there's one method that's best the one that I typically do for the large burritos is kind of cup it in my hand and on the cutting board and just make a circular motion to create that smooth ball for the smaller tortilla so generally just put them in between my hands and roll them up like that again put all the finished dough balls underneath plastic wrap so they can retain that moisture with the balls of dough done now we could talk about rolling knees so what you want to do is throw out your ball of tortilla and just flat it down with your hands into a circular shape then we're gonna go over this with a rolling pin and I found it a little helpful if you sprinkle a little bit of salt either in the tortilla or you can put it right on the rolling pin itself now we can start rolling these out what I like to do is just roll the tortilla away from me then I'll give it like a nice little quarter turn and then we'll roll it out again in that same direction and keep repeating that process over and over until we get the thinnest we like now you can get these things very very thin like it's almost crazy how just how thin you can get these and that's what I like to do for these big burritos I like to get them really like lazer thin and then that is gonna make us a big burrito later on once you have the tortilla rolled out what you're gonna do is just throw this onto a tray and cover that up with a damp towel overall I found this tortilla dough is really easy to work with really easy to roll out you're not really gonna have any tears or anything like that so you can really go at it with all the force you have [Music] [Music] and when you do sometimes you get this weird cool thing that happens with the tortilla do I don't know why but that thing looks so cool to me and you can see just how thin you can get these like you can literally see the cutting board through the tortilla that's just how thin these guys can get where the little tortillas that's the exact process just flatten them out by hand roll them with a rolling pin to your desired thickness again I like these pretty thin and then to give you a little reference point this is what the 75 gram tortilla looks like versus the 25 gram tortilla with the tortillas all rolled out let's head to the stove now a couple keys over here definitely make sure you have a ripping hot cast iron and set up a nice little workstation for yourself moving left to right we're gonna take the tortillas pop them in the ripping out cast iron and then put them in a towel to help keep them warm while they sit place your flour tortillas in the hot cast-iron and you're just gonna let them start to bubble up generally I do around 30 seconds on the first side then I'll flip them over and do another about just 10 seconds on the second side what you're looking for is that flour tortilla to start puffing up and creating air bubbles and getting some nice little brown bits on the facedown side and just like that we have our first flour tortilla give it the nice rip apart test for that soft pillowy goodness and the first tortilla Optical mall is always a snack for the chef now continue cooking your flour tortillas moving left to right and keeping those all warm under the towel now one thing that I did want to point out is your cast iron may start smoking a little bit and set off your fire alarm in this case there may be a little bit of particles of flour or dough on the pan that are kind of causing it to smoke up so just put your pan off the heat remove those pieces and then let it cool down for maybe a minute and we can go right back to cooking and this is a nice look at that burrito size one just perfectly apply a bowl fresh tender and lovely let's make some burritos all right here's a little breakfast burrito that I whipped up you're gonna get out a pan over medium heat toss in some butter and then to that I added up some sliced poblanos and some onion meanwhile I'm gonna chop up some fresh smoked bacon fresh off the smoker just yesterday that my dad did who can't absolutely beat this up just look at the marbling of that fat and those nice pieces of pork belly remove the poblanos and onions off to the side and now you're just gonna toss in your bacon pieces and let that bat render out until they start to get crispy so nice and crispy now we can turn off the heat and what I'm gonna do is set these aside but save a little bit of the bacon fat for use in our eggs what did it was sharing out most of that bacon fat added a little bit of butter because I like the combination of the two going to scramble up some eggs and toss those right in now what I'm gonna do is soft scramble these so put them over low heat and just slowly bring them to temperature until those large curds start to form now these don't look like the prettiest soft scrambled eggs in the world because we had those little crispy bits from the bacon in there but the flavor is absolutely on point and that's what counts to chop that burrito up put a bunch of those soft scrambled eggs down then we're going to hit it with those poblanos and onions add a nice sprinkle of Monterey Jack or melting cheese I'm gonna hit this with a little bit of hot sauce some pickled onions and then we can roll this bad boy up cut it on a diagonal because it always adds more flavor and now you can enjoy one of the best breakfast burritos of your life for a breakfast taco on the 25 gram tortilla I threw down those same eggs added those bacon pieces pickled onions a nice big slice of avocado and then finish that out with just a little bit of Salaam and what you have there is just some mighty delicious ways to enjoy breakfast we cover those authentic lard flour tortillas but what if you don't have lard luckily there are a number of alternatives vegetable shortening or oil are common ones you'll see in other recipes but what most of us probably have is butter so that's what I used I was curious to see if one was better than the other and we'll double time the recipe this time around at 80 grams of butter - 450 grams of flour and pinch in your hands until it is broken up and crumbly add 5 grams of salt - 250 milliliters water and gradually pour it into the tortilla dough mix it with your hands until the shaggy dough forms then knead for 4 to 5 minutes until the dough is completely smooth and no longer sticks let the dough rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes once rested cut into even sized balls and roll them out very thin place over a ripping hot cast-iron and there you have tortillas made with butter now here's a side by side shot of a lower tortilla and a butter tortilla both are gorgeous and you can't really tell a difference aesthetically the texture and flavor is just slightly different though the lurid flour tortilla has maybe a smoother texture I would say and I do prefer the flavor a little bit more this is me nitpicking though once you have this loaded up with your different favorite taco fillings it's going to be very hard to tell a difference between the two so whether you have lard or you have butter you are in for a delicious tortilla ladies and gents to round out the video let's go over my top tips for making tortillas number 1 use a scale I use a scale all throughout the video for a reason weight is more precise than volume measurements and is crucial in breads dough's and pastries especially for tortillas you'll know the dough every time if you go by weight additionally you can weigh out those even size tortillas number two work the dough until it is completely smooth don't give up on that dough early in the kneading process keep working on it in my first batch you guys saw it was a little bit dry but at the end of kneading it got to where it needed to be so make sure you keep kneading and it'll get to a completely smooth and not sticky number three don't forget to let the dough rest resting the dough before rolling out the tortillas lets it become supple and so much easier to work with in just 20 minutes you will really feel that dough transform and it will make the rest of the process that much easier number four do not overcook the tortilla I forgot to mention this earlier but the tortilla is overcooked on the cast-iron it won't rest well and maintain its pliability instead it will become brittle and hard and kind of crack up additionally to store the tortillas I found it's best to do so in an airtight container with a slightly damp paper towel lastly it serve it with something delicious whether it's just cheese or a smoked meat get something delicious in those tortillas and enjoy my friends so hopefully you guys enjoy this video and I know you guys would be on the pathway to success we're making perfect flour tortillas at home it's a really fun project actually comes together if you do a small batch you can have flour tortillas on your plate in like 30 to 35 minutes you know if you make bigger batches or make double batches like I did in this video it does kind of take a while to rule everything out but super good to use they're just oh that that tear apart and that shoe that they have is unparalleled compared to the ones that you buy this there but that's gonna wrap it up for this one hopefully you guys enjoy the video and I will catch you in the next [Music]

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 256,295

Rating: 4.933805 out of 5

Keywords: Cook with E, authentic flour tortillas, flour tortillas, traditional flour tortillas, flour tortilla recipe, best flour tortillas, how to make flour tortillas, homemade tortillas, easy tortilla recipe, flour tortillas with lard, pork lard flour tortilla, flour tortillas no lard, flour tortillas no baking powder, flour tortillas from scratch, mexican flour tortilla recipe, diana kennedy tortillas, mexican tortilla recipe, easy tortilla recipe without lard

Id: 9gaQfu_wPGw

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020