to make homemade corn tortillas. I have gotten a lot of request for these. I showed y’all

how to make wheat flour tortillas a while back whenever we released the breakfast taco

book, and while corn tortillas are not really traditional on Austin breakfast tacos, sometimes

you will see them, especially who are gluten intolerant, and if you’ve never had a homemade

corn tortilla, you are seriously in for a treat. There are so much better. They are

infinitely better than anything that you can buy at a store, and they are super-easy.

[MUSIC]

[Homemade Corn Tortilla Recipe]

>> Hilah: You only need three ingredients for these, one of these might be kind of hard

to find wherever you live, but saltwater and then the masa flour, masa harina, this made

by soaking dried corn in a solution of lime water, and that’s not, I don’t mean the

fruit. It’s calcium hydroxide which is a really strong alkalizing agent, and it sloughs

off the outer hull of the corn, and then that interior, meaty part is ground up to make

the masa dough, and sometimes you can find that already made, sort of like a big, you

know, probably like a two pound bag of sort of a play dough looking substance. When that

is dried and then sort of like repulverized, then you end up with this, so it’s basically

a flour that’s already been cooked if that makes sense. It’s been cooked by the lime.

That’s what we’re going to use today. If you can find the already prepared masa

dough, you can use that. I have got a about a cup here. This is just

some salt. I like to weigh masa because it can absorb water from the humidity in the

air and stuff, and that will affect how much water you need to add, so for about four ounces

of masa which is 28 times 4 grams which is 112, I don’t know, we’re probably going

to probably use about 2/3 of a cup of warm water, and this is just warm to the touch,

but I like to start out with just a little bit at first, maybe half a cup and start mixing

it up, and you’ll get the hang of this. You’ll start to just sort of know, it’s

like pie crust where you just have to do it a few times, and then you’ll know what the

right consistency is, but it’s really easy to work with. Corn is naturally gluten-free,

so this is a great thing for people that have gluten sensitivities. If you actually had

full-on celiacs or something, you’d probably want to get some kind of like special, approved

masa that hasn’t ever touched anything that has ever touched wheat, but for regular gluten

sensitivity I think this is probably fine. So then just kind of get your hands in there

so you can start to feel how it’s coming together, and what we’re looking for is

something that obviously holds together into a ball, but isn't sticky. If it starts, if

it sticks when you start to press it out, that means it’s a little bit too wet ,and

if it sticks to your hands a lot, it’s a little bit too wet. I think I might have overdone

my water, so I am going to add a little bit more, but the great thing is because there’s

no gluten in this, you don’t have to worry about overworking it like you do with the

pie crust. It’s never going to get tough, so you can just play with it all day long.

Just play with yourself and your masa dough all day.

Okay. See it holds together, but it’s not sticking to my hands. A lot of traditional

Mexican cooks will actually pat them out by hand, but that takes probably a good decade

of practice, and I am not that old, just kidding I totally am, but I have a tortilla press

and I am going to use that. Okay, so this is a metal tortilla press. This is actually

a pretty bad designed one because it doesn't open all the way, and then it can very easily

fall shut and slam your finger which has happened to me only once I am happy to say, but it

hurt like the dickens. So, you can use this. You can use one that’s made out of wood,

whatever you can find, and I am going to line it with some Saran Wrap, like so, can you

see that? And then you just want to pinch off balls of dough about the size of a golf

ball which will give you a four to five inch sized tortilla which is kind of small. It’s

definitely smaller than the ones that you get in the store, but it’s a good size for

little tacos and stuff it’s fine.

So put your little ball down there, and close that, and this where your little power lever.

It’s a very simple machine, and just squish it. you can make them as thick or thin as

you want, but this seems good to me, and see if it had stuck to the plastic, I would just

pull it off and put it back in here and add a little bit more of the dry masa, but it

didn't stick, so that means we’re looking good, and I’ve got my hot skillet over here,

and I am just going to throw it right in the center, no oil, no grease, nothing like that,

and just let it cook for, I don't know a minute or so, and then we’ll flip it and let it

cook another 30 seconds. If you don’t have a press, you can totally do it without one,

and without using your pans manually because gross right! I hate doing stuff with my hands.

We just still want to use the plastic, make your little ball. Fold it over like so, and

then get a pot. I know you got one of these. Just sort of mash it out evenly, ahh, here

we go. It’s kind of a baby one. This one will be for banjo. All right, turning back

over here. Pay attention, so it’s starting to bubble up a little bit, and the edges start

to like curl up, and these are traditionally done on more like a griddle, like a comal

flat thing, but I don’t actually have one of those, so I use a cast-iron skillet, but

I use that for everything, so I guess that’s not really very special.

All right, see this one is starting to puff up a little bit? It’s totally okay. It’s

a little inflato, that’s all right, and then I’ve got my little tortilla warmer

here which you can buy these, or if you want to just wrap them up in a clean tea towel,

that’s totally fine too. Keep them wrapped up in there, and once you have, you know,

your 12 tortillas, or your 8 tortillas made or whatever, then you can wrap that whole

deal in foil and put it in the oven at like 150, 200 Fahrenheit, and just they’ll stay

warm, and fresh, and delicious in there for quite a while. There we go. Okay! Tortillas

are done. I forgot to mention that you should still wrap them in a cloth just to absorb

any condensation and keep them from getting soggy, but anyway, I will just show you how

awesome and tender and pliable these are compared to something you might buy at the store, so

I am like stretching it. It’s like an elastic, rubber band almost here. So of course you

can make a taco, or you could spread it with butter and sprinkle it with some salt, or

you could just put a little bit of hot sauce on it like I am about to do, and enjoy the

wonderful, natural corny flavor. Mmmmm hmmm. It’s a great snack! It’s like you’re

chewing something because it’s actually like real foot. All right, well thank you

for watching. If you have any questions about the recipe, or any comments about how I screwed

it all up, and I should just stick to being a white person, please leave them below and

I will respond as cheerfully as possible. Thanks again, and have a wonderful week. Bye

bye!