Recession Recipes .Net

Recently, I purchased one of the best small kitchen appliances I ever got: an electric tortilla maker.  Making tortillas at home used to be an hours long operation, and this was especially tough in the summer.  Now, I can churn out 20 tortillas in less than an hour.

If you eat tortillas often, then it’s definitely worth it to get a tortilla maker.  If you live in Europe, Africa, or Asia, it may be called a roti or chapati maker.  It’s basically a press grill with a handle opposing the angle of the grill, that you can  push to make sure your tortillas are thin without having to push the top down directly.

Choosing A Tortilla Maker

There are a couple of kinds of tortilla makers on the market for kitchen use.  There are large ones that restaurants that make their own tortillas use, and the small ones that make tortillas between 6″ and 8″.  You definitely want to get one that has an anodized aluminum coating or cast iron plates.

How to Use Your Tortilla Maker

If you get one with cast iron plates, they may take some time to season.  Before you use it, wipe it down with a bit of oil, and let it heat until the oil burns.  Then do it again a few times.  Don’t ever clean it with soap.  If something gets stuck to it, wipe it down with a damp cloth, and heat it until all of the water is completely evaporated.

The directions say to just put a ball of dough in the center of the bottom, put the top down and press, but it’s actually not that simple.  If you do it that way it’s harder to control.  So pat down the balls a bit so that you have a kind of a disk shape.  Place them a bit off center, about 1-2″ away from the back edge, and then press.  You may have to look to see how flat you’re pressing it, until you get the hang of it.  If you press them too thin, the tortilla will basically “explode” outward, or come out with holes.

If it doesn’t have a thickness control, which most small ones don’t, then you’ll have to take care about that.  They will be thinner on one side than the other, but this isn’t something to worry over.  Even on the thick side, they’ll be quite thin enough to do the job.

Tortilla Recipe

The recipes that normally come with tortilla makers often have oil in them.  This ends up making tortillas that are too flaky to hold anything.  So here’s my recipe for taco worthy flour tortillas.

• 3 cups white flour (You can use whole wheat, oat, barley, rye, or millet flour for up to half of the flour.) 
• 1.5 teaspoons salt (preferably crushed gray salt)
• 1.5 teaspoons baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
• 1 teaspoon citric acid or cream of tartar  (you can also use baking powder instead of the soda and acid combination)
• about 1.5 cups water
• extra flour for kneading

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Slowly add water while stirring with your fingers or a spoon until you have a somewhat soggy dough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface.
4. Knead the dough until it is fully combined, and then for another 5 minutes or so.  You may need to add a little more flour at a time until you have a firm but elastic dough.
5. Put the ball of dough into a plastic bag, or in a covered bowl, and let it set for half an hour to two hours.  I recommend at least an hour because this gives the organic acids time to break down the gluten in the flour and make it more digestible.
6. Heat up your tortilla maker.
7. Pull off some chunks of dough, and roll them into approximately 1.5″ balls.  Then flatten them a bit.  Have them waiting on a floured surface.
8. One at a time, brush off the flour, and then place them into your tortilla maker, and press until you hear the “screaming”.  Then release the pressure.
9. When each one is done, place it in a covered but not air tight dish, lined with a few paper towels at the bottom.  It’s important to keep them like this so that they get soft and flexible but not soggy.

These tortillas will stand up to beans, meat, or whatever else you like to put in them or use them to dip.

To make crispy chips out of them, brush them with a little butter and seasonings and bake them for about 15 minutes in the oven.