>> Hilah: Hey dudes!
I am Hilah, and today on Hilah Cooking we’re taking relatively healthy corn masa mixture
and turning it into a relatively unhealthy little snack called a gordita, and if you
Google gordita a lot of what shows up is pornography.
It means “little fatty” or “little fat girl,” but really what it is, well, what
we’re going to make today is a little, fat, corn tortilla that’s baked and then fried
and then split open and stuffed with all kinds of stuff.
It’s not going to be pornographic, I swear.
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[Gorditas Recipe]
>> Hilah: Okay, we’re going to start out with the same masa flour that we used for
the corn tortillas, and there are so many variations of a gordita depending on where
you are in the country, either in Mexico, or even in Texas.
I am going to show you the one that I am the most familiar with.
Sometimes they are stuffed first and then cooked.
Sometimes they are just like meat, like chicharrones, like mixed into the dough, and then that whole
cake is just fried, and it’s not split open or stuffed at all, but what I am going to
show you is the way that I have seen them most often, so I just added some baking powder
and salt, and the baking powder is kind of optional, but it does make them puff up a
little bit better.
I am going to add a little bit of oil, and then again just water until it seems right,
and the water is a little bit warm.
Mister B wants to help.
Really he’s just waiting for me to drop something.
So, now I will get my hands in there and just start to feel it.
Okay, it’s a little bit soft actually, so I am going to add a little bit more masa flour.
Okay, so we’re going to pinch off balls, oh my God, I am 12.
We’re going to pinch off balls that are, I don't know, about that size, about the size
of a tangerine, and you want to just sort of flatten it out with your hands until about
half an inch thick, maybe a little bit less, like a third of an inch, and this is something
that would be great for kids to help with too if you had little kids in the kitchen
because they can’t really screw it up, even if your kid is super-dumb.
[MUSIC]
Okay, we’re going to start out cooking these just like we did the corn tortillas, so I’ve
got just a dry skillet here over a fairly high heat.
I am just going to let these cook for a minute or two on each side until they are nice and
golden brown.
This is just the primary cooking step.
Then we’re going to deep fry them.
A lot of cooks will just cook them in the skillet.
I am going to come all and serve them as is, but have I told you lately that I love fried
stuff?
Because I do.
So, we’re going to fry them because that is also something that you sometimes see.
So, you know, like a lot of things Mexico is a big old, [bleep] dudes, and there’s
a lot of different ways to do it, but you’ll see.
So you just want to check them whenever the bottoms are sort of getting little brown speckles
like that.
You can go ahead and flip them, almost ready to fry.
So you want to heat your oil up to between 360 and 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
You can use a deep fryer for this, but really all you need is maybe an inch, an inch and
a half of oil.
You just want to make sure the oil is deeper than the thickness of your gorditas so that
they’re completely submerged ,and you’re just going to keep an eye on them.
Once they start to float, we’ll flip them to make sure both sides get browned.
Then we’re pretty much done, and just maintain your temperature to be 360 to 375.
Okay, so you can see the tops are sort of starting to round out a little bit.
They are puffing up, and they’re floating off of the bottom of the skillet, so we can
flip it carefully, do not splash yourself with hot oil no matter how fun that sounds.
Just maybe like 30 more seconds on this side, and just have some paper towels ready to drain
them on or some left over cocktail napkins that you sold from a bar probably, and then
we can go for the other ones.
Mister B is tired of waiting for his gordita.
Okay, beautiful.
So I am going to take these out and just let them cool while you assemble whatever fillings
you want.
I am going to have some carnitas that I made and some black beans, some vegetables, some
cheese.
Okay, so these have been cooling for a few minutes.
You want to use some sort of serrated knife like a steak knife to sort of cut it like
a bagel, not all the way through.
We’re just making a little pocket here to hold our filling.
Look, it’s like a Pac Man, wa wa wa, eat me!
And I am going to stuff it with some carnitas which is a shredded pork filling, or whatever.
I did a video on it a while back.
If you wanted to do vegetarian, you could totally do black beans or refried beans.
Just a little bit of that.
Some cotija is very traditional which is a dried, crumbly, salty cheese.
Let’s see, some onion, a little cilantro, and some lettuce.
You could use cabbage, whatever, just cram it in there.
It’s pretty sturdy as long as you don’t cut too deep through it, it should be fine,
and then top with whatever salsa of your choice, and then chow down homies.
Look at that.
I got a delicious little stuffed, fried, little fatty tortilla here, a little gordita.
Good lord that is good!
Oh my God!
So messy, so delicious.
Banjo cannot wait to have some, so yeah, we got this creamy corn interior with the crunchy
fried outside, and then whatever kind of savory, delicious stuff you want to put inside.
Super-awesome, super-great fun thing to make on the weekend.
So if you have any questions about the recipe, please leave it in the comment below and then
I’ll answer it as soon as I can.
Again, thank you so much for watching and have a great weekend, and share with me your
way to make a gordita.
If you’ve got a different way that your mom or your grandma used to make it, please
also let me know about that.
Bye!
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