Flour Tortillas

Although I'm all for trying out new food in the new region I'm living in, I'm not ready for a complete withdrawal from the Mexican cuisine I've come to love over the past 6 years of my life while living in California. Although tortillas can be bought in the store here, the selection is rather slim and the prices are somewhat steep - so I decided to try my own hand at making them. If it wasn't for this kind of attitude, would I blog about food in the first place?!

Ingredients:
- 225 g (1/2 lb) flour
- 65 g (2 oz) margarine
- pinch of salt
- 1 dL (1/2 cup) water

The margarine was cut into small cubes and then worked into the flour by hand. The water was warmed and the salt dissolved in it - the resulting salty water was added in small portions (in order not to use too much), working it into the flour by hand. Once a cohesive mass (not very sticky) is obtained the dough was kneaded by hand for 2-4 minutes before forming little balls (in this case 7) which were put back in the bowl, covered and left for about an hour.

A pan was heated on medium high setting (2.5 out of 3 on my electric cooker) - it's advisable to turn it on well in advance so the pan is hot by the time the tortillas are ready to be cooked. No grease needed.


Each ball was flattened first by hand, then rolled into tortillas on a floured surface (as I don't have an ordinary rolling pin in this kitchen yet using instead a 0.5 L beer can - full works best.. I'll get back to that beer in a future post). The tortillas were cooked one by one, roughly some 15 seconds on each side when the pan is properly hot - the latter part of the process and the result looks quite similar to making these pancakes.

I was quite happy with these tortillas - I'll be doing this again.