Thursday, June 30, 2011

Flour Tortillas ~ delicioso!

                                                              
I think making your own flour tortillas is the easiest and one of the most satisfying breads to make! Not only that, BUT you won't find a tastier tortilla anywhere!! Also, they are thick and filling! With store bought tortillas, my husband will have 2 (at least) burritos. With mine, it's 1 and done! I can't say enough goodness about them!!
I make my tortillas BIG when making them for burritos. Here is my recipe -
As always, I used my handy dandy mixer, with this attachment. Mixers really make cooking easy!
Ingredients: 4 cups of all purpose flour
a teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons LARD
OK, side note here. You can use shortening for this. I, however, LOVE to use bacon fat I store away into used (and cleaned out) coffee cans. I save bacon fat, chicken fat, all that good stuff! You can use it as lard, or in place of shortening (it tastes fabulous in a pie crust you're using for a pot pie. DO NOT use it for a sweet pie, though. Veggies taste WONDERFUL tossed in chicken or turkey fat, sprinkled with salt and pepper and broiled!!) OK, back to the list
1 & 1/2 cups water.
Put the flour in the mixing bowl. Add all the ingredients EXCEPT the water. Turn your mixer on stir and let that all mix up (will be crumbly). Add the water a few drips at a time until the dough is moist and sticking together. You may not need to use all the water. You just want the dough sticking together enough to form it. That's it.
Heat some oil in a frying pan (I use cast iron - I love my cast iron!). Put the heat on medium high.

Take out some dough a bit at a time (experiment with different sizes til you can eyeball how much you want or need). Flour your surface and a rolling pin. Toss the dough in the flour a little, then start to roll it out. Roll it out like you would a pie crust, making a circle. Make them AS FLAT AS POSSIBLE. They will puff up!

When it's as thin as you want it, plop it in your frying pan. You'll only need to fry it about 5 minutes or so. Then flip it and cook about 3 minutes or so. You'll need to experiment with this one, as I don't have an exact time.
After that, remove your tortilla from the pan, place it on a plate and make the others. You can wrap it up and save it for later, or just fill it and serve them fresh! Mmmm, fantastico!

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