>> Hilah: Hey dudes!
I am Hilah, and today on Hilah Cooking I am going to show you how to make homemade corn
tortillas.
I have gotten a lot of request for these.
I showed y’all how to make wheat flour tortillas a while back whenever we released the breakfast
taco book, and while corn tortillas are not really traditional on Austin breakfast tacos,
sometimes you will see them, especially who are gluten intolerant, and if you’ve never
had a homemade corn tortilla, you are seriously in for a treat.
There are so much better.
They are infinitely better than anything that you can buy at a store, and they are super-easy.
[MUSIC]
[Homemade Corn Tortilla Recipe]
>> Hilah: You only need three ingredients for these, one of these might be kind of hard
to find wherever you live, but saltwater and then the masa flour, masa harina, this made
by soaking dried corn in a solution of lime water, and that’s not, I don’t mean the
fruit.
It’s calcium hydroxide which is a really strong alkalizing agent, and it sloughs off
the outer hull of the corn, and then that interior, meaty part is ground up to make
the masa dough, and sometimes you can find that already made, sort of like a big, you
know, probably like a two pound bag of sort of a play dough looking substance.
When that is dried and then sort of like repulverized, then you end up with this, so it’s basically
a flour that’s already been cooked if that makes sense.
It’s been cooked by the lime.
That’s what we’re going to use today.
If you can find the already prepared masa dough, you can use that.
I have got a about a cup here.
This is just some salt.
I like to weigh masa because it can absorb water from the humidity in the air and stuff,
and that will affect how much water you need to add, so for about four ounces of masa which
is 28 times 4 grams which is 112, I don’t know, we’re probably going to probably use
about 2/3 of a cup of warm water, and this is just warm to the touch, but I like to start
out with just a little bit at first, maybe half a cup and start mixing it up, and you’ll
get the hang of this.
You’ll start to just sort of know, it’s like pie crust where you just have to do it
a few times, and then you’ll know what the right consistency is, but it’s really easy
to work with.
Corn is naturally gluten-free, so this is a great thing for people that have gluten
sensitivities.
If you actually had full-on celiacs or something, you’d probably want to get some kind of
like special, approved masa that hasn’t ever touched anything that has ever touched
wheat, but for regular gluten sensitivity I think this is probably fine.
So then just kind of get your hands in there so you can start to feel how it’s coming
together, and what we’re looking for is something that obviously holds together into
a ball, but isn't sticky.
If it starts, if it sticks when you start to press it out, that means it’s a little
bit too wet ,and if it sticks to your hands a lot, it’s a little bit too wet.
I think I might have overdone my water, so I am going to add a little bit more, but the
great thing is because there’s no gluten in this, you don’t have to worry about overworking
it like you do with the pie crust.
It’s never going to get tough, so you can just play with it all day long.
Just play with yourself and your masa dough all day.
Okay.
See it holds together, but it’s not sticking to my hands.
A lot of traditional Mexican cooks will actually pat them out by hand, but that takes probably
a good decade of practice, and I am not that old, just kidding I totally am, but I have
a tortilla press and I am going to use that.
Okay, so this is a metal tortilla press.
This is actually a pretty bad designed one because it doesn't open all the way, and then
it can very easily fall shut and slam your finger which has happened to me only once
I am happy to say, but it hurt like the dickens.
So, you can use this.
You can use one that’s made out of wood, whatever you can find, and I am going to line
it with some Saran Wrap, like so, can you see that?
And then you just want to pinch off balls of dough about the size of a golf ball which
will give you a four to five inch sized tortilla which is kind of small.
It’s definitely smaller than the ones that you get in the store, but it’s a good size
for little tacos and stuff it’s fine.
So put your little ball down there, and close that, and this where your little power lever.
It’s a very simple machine, and just squish it.
you can make them as thick or thin as you want, but this seems good to me, and see if
it had stuck to the plastic, I would just pull it off and put it back in here and add
a little bit more of the dry masa, but it didn't stick, so that means we’re looking
good, and I’ve got my hot skillet over here, and I am just going to throw it right in the
center, no oil, no grease, nothing like that, and just let it cook for, I don't know a minute
or so, and then we’ll flip it and let it cook another 30 seconds.
If you don’t have a press, you can totally do it without one, and without using your
pans manually because gross right!
I hate doing stuff with my hands.
We just still want to use the plastic, make your little ball.
Fold it over like so, and then get a pot.
I know you got one of these.
Just sort of mash it out evenly, ahh, here we go.
It’s kind of a baby one.
This one will be for banjo.
All right, turning back over here.
Pay attention, so it’s starting to bubble up a little bit, and the edges start to like
curl up, and these are traditionally done on more like a griddle, like a comal flat
thing, but I don’t actually have one of those, so I use a cast-iron skillet, but I
use that for everything, so I guess that’s not really very special.
All right, see this one is starting to puff up a little bit?
It’s totally okay.
It’s a little inflato, that’s all right, and then I’ve got my little tortilla warmer
here which you can buy these, or if you want to just wrap them up in a clean tea towel,
that’s totally fine too.
Keep them wrapped up in there, and once you have, you know, your 12 tortillas, or your
8 tortillas made or whatever, then you can wrap that whole deal in foil and put it in
the oven at like 150, 200 Fahrenheit, and just they’ll stay warm, and fresh, and delicious
in there for quite a while.
There we go.
Okay!
Tortillas are done.
I forgot to mention that you should still wrap them in a cloth just to absorb any condensation
and keep them from getting soggy, but anyway, I will just show you how awesome and tender
and pliable these are compared to something you might buy at the store, so I am like stretching
it.
It’s like an elastic, rubber band almost here.
So of course you can make a taco, or you could spread it with butter and sprinkle it with
some salt, or you could just put a little bit of hot sauce on it like I am about to
do, and enjoy the wonderful, natural corny flavor.
Mmmmm hmmm.
It’s a great snack!
It’s like you’re chewing something because it’s actually like real foot.
All right, well thank you for watching.
If you have any questions about the recipe, or any comments about how I screwed it all
up, and I should just stick to being a white person, please leave them below and I will
respond as cheerfully as possible.
Thanks again, and have a wonderful week.
Bye bye!