I like the Anglicised version of the Mexican food we get around here, my apologies to anyone reading this who cooks the real stuff.
There are a couple of problems with the supplies which you need to buy to make it though, they are industrially produced and so contain some questionable ingredients that I am sure were not in the original stuff, and it can be quite expensive. Thus our quest to make the good gear from scratch, or at least as scratch as I can make it at the moment, the dairy stuff is a bit problematic as we have no cow or goat so we generally have to buy it in. Anyway, here goes –
The Tortilla
As far as this article goes, this is the easy bit. I have written previously here about making homemade tortillas and we are still using that recipe. It works really well except that I now only cut the ball of dough into 4 instead of 8. We get bigger tortillas that way!
The Spice Mix
This took a little bit of work. We used to buy the packet stuff but had some concerns with it as noted above. We downloaded a few recipes off the net but it took some fooling around to get to a formula we liked the flavour of and was not so hot it took our heads off.
The formula we worked out is as follows;
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons onion powder
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons cornflour
This is a good start and you can go from here. We buy the spices whole or grow our own and grind them just before use, which keeps the flavour fresh. As far as the onion and garlic powder goes, you can buy the powder, buy dried granules and grind in the spice grinder before use or grow your own, dry and then grind. The oregano is also easy to grow, dry and grind. We have not tried anything with DIY paprika so it is bought in as well.
Add 3-4 dessertspoons to the filling mix below, cook up for a minute or two then add ¾ to 1 cup of water which will thicken things up nicely as it reheats.
The Filling
We like to do a veggie filling based on red kidney beans and I shamefully admit that I used to use the tins. It was nice and easy and I have had problems previously with the dried beans made from scratch. However, after some research it turns out that old beans (older than 12 months) can prove difficult to rehydrate and tend to come out like bullets, which kind of explains my previous efforts.
So I bought some fresh ones and soaked a cup of them overnight, changed the water, then boiled them up for 10 minutes and put them in my stored heat cooker for a few hours. What came out the other end were some really nice and well-cooked beans.
My usual recipe calls for a tin of beans which is 410 grams, but that includes the water the beans were cooked in. Once the cup of dried beans were rehydrated and cooked they came out to about 410 grams also, but that was all beans with no cooking water. Anyway, rather than split hairs I decided to use the lot.
To make the filling I tossed a diced onion I into the fry pan with a bit of oil, closely followed by some freshly picked garden veggies diced into about 5mm cubes (carrot, zucchini, capsicum – you get the idea) and some corn niblets. I really don’t measure, just toss the stuff in until it looks enough. This was then followed by the cooked beans. If it gets too dry and starts to catch, toss in a bit of water.
After frying up on low heat for about 15 minutes I tossed in the spice mix and a cup of water then reheated to boil and thicken the spice mix. Your burrito filling is now ready to serve!
Other Stuff
To eat we put some filling mix onto the tortilla, add some sliced tomato and lettuce (home grown where possible), some shredded cheese, sour cream and sweet chilli sauce. I will make this for tea every couple of weeks and we both enjoy it a lot.
It sounds like a lot of effort but it is not really. You can precook the beans and pre-make the spice mix and then all you do on the day is make the tortillas and cook up the filling. Give it a go and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!
