Finally – it’s time for the final critical component in our Summer of 2015 Fish Taco Project: Homemade Corn Tortillas.
Until you’ve tasted for yourself, you’d never really guess a freshly made tortilla could be that much better than the mass-produced, limp version sitting bagged for weeks at a time on the supermarket shelf.
She Who Must Be Obeyed and I got our first glimpse of tortilla truth when living in San Antonio years ago during my grad school run. We were too poor to eat out more than once a quarter or so, though we did manage to beg a meal out every few months from visiting relatives or sympathetic friends.
Many of the Tex-Mex eateries in that region had (and still have) a tortilla making station set up where it’s visible in the restaurant; skilled hands patted out balls of masa, hand or machine pressed them flat and cooked them on the comal or rotating griddle.
Until starting down the road in pursuit of the perfect fish taco this spring we’d only dabbled with making tortillas at home, though the home product is lightyears better than anything you can buy at the grocery.
With just a pinch of patience – and practice – you can turn out perfectly tasty and sturdy corn tortillas for tacos at home. Sliced and fried these will also make the best corn tortillas chips you’ve ever tasted; that’s another story for another day.
A tortilla press makes this process infinitely easier, though we still just use a glass pie plate and crank out perfect batches every time.
2 cups masa harina
1 and 1/4 cups water
Pinch of salt
Make a dough. Combine the masa harina, salt and the water in a mixing bowl; if using a stand mixer, mix withe dough hook until the dough comes together (roughly a minute). If by hand, knead until the dough comes together, might take up to three minutes. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes, covered, then shape into 12 balls.
If the dough is a bit dry coming together, add water a tsp. or two at a time. If the dough is sticky when handled, mix in a bit more masa harina.
Preheat your comal or cast-iron skillet over medium heat.
Press and cook. Using a plastic wrap lined tortilla press OR a glass pie plate (the dough again placed inside a fold of plastic wrap), press each ball of dough flat, then peel off and place in the skillet.
All you need is 30 to 45 seconds (unless your tortillas are too thick) per side; you’re looking for the edges to begin to curl the cooking surface of the tortilla to become almost pebbly looking with a few brown, toasted spots.
As the tortillas cook, wrap them up in a tea towel and ideally place in a tortilla warmer.
Serve warm and now we’re just about ready for those fish tacos!
Enjoy.
