Flour Tortillas

About twice a month, Todd and I have taco Tuesday. It is becoming a great tradition and a yummy one as well. You know the drill for tacos. Cut up some onions, green peppers, jalapenos, and chicken or beef. Saute it all until it's done and add seasonings you like (Todd likes cumin and paprika) and serve it up.

Well, Todd starts getting ready to cook dinner and we realize we have no taco shells. Now we are faced with the decision, tacos or stir-fry. Now, I had been looking forward to tacos and was not about to let them slip away that easily. (Insert giant thank you to google here). To the internet I rushed and typed in the simple words "tortilla recipe" and up popped something so delicious I may never go back to taco shells again. Here...it...is.

Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4-6 Tbsp. vegetable shortening or lard
about 1 1/4 cups warm water

Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add vegetable shortening or lard. Or use a combination of half lard, half shortening.
Use a fork or a pastry cutter to cut in the shortening or just do it the old fashioned way and use your hands.

Next add warm water a little at a time until your dough is soft and not sticky. You do not need very hot water.

Knead the dough for a few minutes.

Now you will pull off pieces of dough to form about 12 small dough balls. Let them rest for at least 10 minutes, longer if you like.

This is a good time to heat up the comal. You will want to set it at medium to high
heat. If it is too hot the tortillas will cook too fast.

Now you can roll out the dough with your tortilla rolling pin or palote. It is a good
idea to dust each ball with a little flour just before you roll them out. Lay the palote in the center of the dough ball and roll up, center and roll down. It is good to lift the dough and turn it. Again, rolling pin in the center and roll. Roll them out fairly thin.

Lay your tortilla on the hot comal. It takes just a few seconds to cook. Flip to the other side. When they are done it should have lots of nice brown speckles. Place them in a towel. If you would like you can use a tortilla warmer to keep them warm longer.
They are ready to be served!




Now I know what you are thinking and no, I do not have any of these traditional Mexican kitchen "appliances" (I can't think of the right word). So we improvised, which hungry, fat, Americans are great at. Use a cutting board, rolling pin, and non-stick skillet. They don't turn out quite as thin, as you can see in the photo, but they are very yummy. If you must have the original, correct tools to make your tortillas, you can buy a kit here.

Enjoy your own taco Tuesday and the little amount of work for these tortillas is worth it!
(I don't know why, but that last bit is played out in my head as you running away to your kitchen to make these and me calling after you. It's been a long week.)

Update: I don't know why the spacing is weird in the "Instructions" part. But I'm too lazy to fix it today.