Flour Tortillas

The best flour tortillas that I had was in California. They were full of flavour, crispy but still pliable. It was elastic and strong but still kept the filling from spilling out. There are no store bought tortillas (that I have tried) that compare. Because of this tragedy, I decided to make my own. It looked simple enough but time consuming.

The ingredients are simple; flour, lard, salt, baking powder and hot water.

Combine 2 1/2 cup flour, 2 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt in a bowl. Using a fork or pasty cutter, take lard (and yes it tastes better with lard) and break it up into small pieces until it looks like crumbs.

Pour 1 cup of very hot water into the flour mixture and kneed until it is less sticky. I would pour the water slowly because you may not need all of it. Kneed 30-40 times and then cover with a damp tea towel. Allow the dough to rest for about an hour. After an hour, portion the dough into small 1 inch balls. Place them on a cutting board and cover with a tea towel. Rest for another 30 minutes. This will make the dough easier to roll out.

On a floured surface, roll the dough as thin as possible. The dough tends to shrink when it gets pan fried. I also made the balls a lot small because I wanted appetizer sized tortilla wraps. Rolling out the dough took the longest time because I panned fried the tortilla right after I rolled it out. It was just an endless train of rolling and frying. It would be a lot easier to get a tortilla press.When you pan fry the tortilla, make sure the pan is set to medium high. You may need to adjust the temperature during the first couple of tries while you figure out your pan. The pan needs to be hot enough to brown your tortilla but not too hot o make it too crispy.

Continue to cook the tortillas until you finish all the dough balls. Cover with a dry tea towel and serve warm. Overall these tortillas turned out more like naan bread. It was thicker than I would have liked and not as pliable. For the first attempt, I thought it turned out pretty good. My family enjoyed it and I know there was no leftovers. Maybe in the future I will attempt another batched of these flour tortillas but rolled out bigger and thinner. Try these out with some pork carnitas or your favorite burrito filling!