I was browsing Chowhound last week and found an entry about homemade tortillas. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to try, so I figured I’d do it this weekend, and printed out a couple of recipes. I’ve talked to my neighbor Maria about them before, and she always mentions that I should come over some time while she’s cooking them, to see how easy it is.

She looked at the recipes that I’d printed, and said, “Oh, no no,” and right there in the street, rattled off her own from memory while I frantically scribbled it down.

Here’s Maria’s recipe:

5 cups La Pina flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shortening
2-3 cups warm water
a little butter to brush on

In a big bowl or on the counter, combine the dry ingredients well. Add the shortening, crumbling it in by hand, until the whole dough has a nice grainy texture. Slowly add the water and mix it in as you go. Don’t over-water, or it will be sticky. Knead the dough, but not too much, as it’ll get tough. Seperate the dough into individual balls for tortillas, brush a little butter on them so they don’t develop a crust, and let them rest for a while - 20 minutes in this weather, 40 in cooler weather. Roll them out as thinly as you can; I dusted my bread board with flour each time, but I didn’t have any problems at all with them sticking, so that might have been overkill.

Then just fry them up in a dry pan. I have a tortilla pan for reheating, but it’s not as non-stick as my grandmother’s old cast iron, so I used that, which limited me to 12-inch tortillas. Flip them a few times. You’ll see when they’re done; they’ll puff up into layers. I found cooking them slowly over medium heat was good, but I could have gone with a little lower heat, as they were a little thick and I still had a slight raw flour taste when I was done. That will probably go away when I reheat the leftovers.

Maria insisted that La Pina was the flour to go with. It’s just a Mexican brand of all-purpose flour, as far as I can tell, but who am I to argue with the expert? I went and got some La Pina; fortunately, the Mexican grocery is right across the street.

They were good, basically very tender gorditas. I filled mine with chili-lime shrimp done on the grill, with grilled pineapple on the side. The kids aren’t huge fans of shrimp, but they liked them.

I could also see making smaller, thicker rounds, and deep-frying them for sopapillas, which I remember having with honey drizzled over them when I was a kid.