Under the Choko Tree By Nevin Sweeney

Making Homemade Tortillas

I like Mexican food (the admittedly anglicised stuff available here anyway) in general and tortillas wrapped around it in particular. Mind you I was concerned by some of the additives and the level of packaging of the damn things so maybe something a bit more home cooked was called for. I also like making gadgetty things that help me do stuff around the house. During my researches and in my efforts to go low tech and increase the variety of food stuffs we make I found that concept of a tortilla press interesting. I could indulge two interests (food and gadgets!) in oneactivity by constructing my own tortilla press. Unfortunately, it didn’t end well.

As usual I did some research on the net and came up with a design for a tortilla press. I had some some 20mm thick DAR pine floating around so I cut out an upper and lower plated, then from the bottom platen a place for the pivot and lever to apply pressure to the top platen forcing it to squish (technical term) down on the bottom platen, added some braces at each end and then put on the hinges as you can see from the photos below.

Tortilla Press

Pivot Point for the lever

 

The idea is to stick plastic food wrap on each platen, make a ball of dough and place it in the centre of the lower platen, then press the platens together using the lever pressing down on the top platen forming a nice thin disk of dough, ready for cooking. Pine is a cheap and readily available timber to construct things out of but it is not the strongest timber I have ever worked with. Either than or I don’t know my own strength!

Dough ball in place

After the squish!

While operating my tortilla press (of which I was very proud I might add) the resulting tortillas, while being nice and round, were not of the required diameter or level of thinness which I required. I am a male and admit that the cure for this problem which first occurred to my brain was to apply more force. This proved to be the incorrect solution. This became evident when the tortilla press failed catastrophically, ripping the area where the lever was attached right off the press. Embarrassment was severe!

After Failure

As a result of the aforementioned catastrophic failure, I followed my usual procedure when such things happened and tossed it into a corner for later consideration. Unfortunately I still wanted homemade tortillas and the ones I made using a standard rolling pin were just too thick.

While I had not given the idea up I had gone off it somewhat, but by chance (and for a very modest price) I was able to buy an elliptical rolling pin. It is amazing how much easier things get when you have the right tool for the job and this type of rolling pin allows you to put extra pressure right where you want it, getting a nice thin product. When wielded skilfully around the edges you also wind up with a nice evenly round product. As can be seen below I am not yet skilful!

Eliptical Rolling Pin

The recipe I used was wonderfully simple, using only four ingredients – flour (actually 5 ingredients because I used 2 types of flour), salt, water and olive oil in the proportions below –

Wholemeal flour (ground on our new mill!) 1 cup
Bakers flour 1 cup
Salt ¾ TSP
Olive oil 3 Tbsp
Water (warmed) 2/3 cup

To make:

Mix the flours, oil and salt in a bowl and then slowly add the water while mixing it in with your fingers. Keep adding the water and mixing until it comes together into a dough, turn out and knead for a couple of minutes. Put back into the bowl and let the dough rest for 20 minutes. Cut the dough into 8 equalized wedges and then form into balls. Using the elliptical rolling pin, roll out each ball into a thin disc. Place into a lightly oiled man on medium heat and let it cook until bubbles form, for me this was a couple of minutes, then turn over and cook on the other side. Consume immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge. Freeze if you want to keep them longer.

The end product might not be too pretty (or at least mine weren’t) but they tasted good and were flexible enough to wrap around the filling so I didn’t make a mess of my shirt (again). All up they only took half an hour to prepare including waiting time and a couple of minutes to cook each one. They are a worthwhile addition to your culinary repertoire.

Not pretty but very tasty!

2019 Update

We now make these fellas on a regular basis, at least once and sometimes twice a week as a bread substitute. We use them to make burritos or wraps for lunch. The main difference is that we only cut the dough into four pieces instead of eight, giving us a larger tortilla, which we can pack more filling into!

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