Reader Scott writes: Use number n + 1 for your sous vide machine: maize nixtamalization. Add calcium hydroxide and protease enzymes and set the sous vide to mid 50’s C for efficient proteolytic activity! Holy cow, I had no idea this thing was so versatile! Hear that, honey? Your husband just bought us a miracle […]
READ ONThe functional advantages of nixtamalization are just the beginning of what the process brought to the ancient Mesoamericans. For in the process of making their corn easier to handle and eat, Mesoamerican cooks accidentally unleashed a torrent of nutrients that would otherwise have been unavailable to them. For nixtamalization, it turns out, vastly increases the […]
READ ONReader Mary Sue writes: My abuelita began making her white flour tortillas with cooking oil instead of shortening after my abuelito’s third heart attack. She uses about 1/3rd of a cup of oil, these days canola or sunflower. Of course, it being a grandmother recipe, she’s been eyeballing it for decades and there’s no actual […]
READ ONIt’s a good question, because on an intuitive level one would think that if a corn tortilla is a simple pancake made of ground corn, there really shouldn’t be that much difference between finely ground corn meal and masa harina (literally “dough flour”). In reality there’s a huge difference, which can be summed up in […]
READ ONReader Veggie asks if it’s possible to substitute butter for shortening in flour tortillas. The answer is yes, and I expect butter would give flour tortillas a very nice warm and toasty flavor, though it won’t be anything like what most people are accustomed to. A down side to using butter is that it’s 17% […]
READ ONIt didn’t even occur to me until I was putting this post together that these might seem a little well-done to some of you. But I like deeply toasted tortillas. Store bought tortillas usually sport a few polite light-tan spots on them. I view those as the flatbread equivalent of par-baked bread loaves, meant to […]
READ ONPeople call me the Digression King, but I don’t often digress from my normal content-du-jour into my other pet interests…like music. Today I’m making an exception because I haven’t been able to stop listening to a new bluegrass band by the name of Trampled by Turtles. Ever since I moved to Kentucky I’ve been cultivating […]
READ ONThe Mexican-style tortilla has such a long history, it’s almost impossible to write anything about it. It’s safe to say that something very similar to today’s corn tortilla dates as far back as corn itself, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 years. But the technique — of creating a grain-based paste or gruel and cooking […]
READ ONTalk about a change of gears that’ll practically give you whiplash, this week I’ll be making an Austrian cake called a rehrücken. Why on earth would I want to do that? For one because I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, and for two, because I feel as though I’ve been neglecting German-speaking Europe […]
READ ONI wish there was a way to somehow transmute humble corn meal into the masa harina that’s needed for corn tortillas, however there’s really no substitute. Corn masa (dough) comes in two forms: ready made dough which is sold in tubs and is only available in larger cities with established Mexican communities, or dried instant […]
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