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Have you ever made one simple decision that changed your life? I have. I didn't decide to abandon civilization, drastically change my career path, or have a kid—I made homemade tortillas.
Reality shifted. My consciousness dissipated and reemerged on a new timeline. Everything I knew was revealed as a lie, and, suddenly, store-bought tortillas were dead to me.
I should have known that homemade is, aside from a few exceptions, the way to go. I'd been getting blue corn tortillas from a nearby Mexican deli, though, so I thought I was doing something right. Then I got my mitts on a copy of Alex Stupak's cookbook, aptly named Tacos, in which he declares, "There is absolutely no substitute for a fresh, homemade tortilla, and suggesting any kind of store-bought alternatives would keep me up at night." You can't read that and not wonder what could be.
Getting started is the hard part. Nixtamal, masa, masa harina—there's a lot of information to weed through before you get going. Masa is ground-up nixtamal, which is dried field corn that's been treated with calcium oxide to make it more digestible, and it's the base of real-deal homemade tortillas. Masa harina, on the other hand, is masa that's been dehydrated and ground into a flour—it's more easily accessible than fresh masa (I use Bob's Red Mill brand, which is at pretty much every store), but it's a bit of a step down in quality. Stupak compares masa to a good cup of coffee and masa harina to Folger's.
Well, you can't win 'em all, plus, I love Folger's. In the name of convenience, I picked up a bag of masa harina and got to work kneading it with a hearty pinch of salt and enough warm water to form a dough (okay, fine, my boyfriend made the dough while I drank margaritas and barked commands at him. I'm only disclosing this because I know he'll read it.) Once the dough felt, well, doughy, we grabbed golf-ball-sized pieces and smashed them between plastic wrap with the bottom of a heavy cast-iron skillet, peeled the plastic off, and got to cooking them in a dry pan.
All I can say about the charred, warm, perfectly fold-able result: homemade tortillas have made me a changed woman. Steak, chicken, pork, vegetables and guacamole deserve so much more than what I was giving them—and I'm never going back.
