You can wrap just about anything in a freshly made corn tortilla, hot off the comal or griddle, and it’ll be wonderful. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.
In another lifetime, when I was in my 20s and living in Los Angeles, I made fresh tortillas all the time. I had a cheap aluminium tortilla press and a cheap aluminium comal (tortilla griddle); I’d picked up both in a Mexican grocers. You could buy a bag of masa harina (dried powdered masa) just about anywhere.
I was in a serious carnitas phase: I’d fallen in love with Diana Kennedy’s version in her landmark cookbook The Cuisines of Mexico, and I’d make that with salsa verde cruda and guacamole and a big pot of pinto beans to serve on the side.
A few years after that, in the early ’90s, I lucked into meeting Kennedy, and we got into a discussion about corn tortillas. I’ll never forget her expression when I told her I was in the habit of using masa harina to make mine: I might as well have told her I was a regular at Taco Bell. She was scandalised.
She insisted that masa made from nixtamal – corn kernels cooked in a solution of lime (calcium oxide) and water – was the only legitimate masa. I knew all about it from her book, but when I’d gotten to the part of the two-page process that said, “Meantime, crush the lime if it is in a lump, taking care that the dust does not get into your eyes,” I stopped reading.
With Kennedy, I tried to defend my position, arguing that tortillas freshly made from masa harina are way better than anything you can buy at the store. “Better to buy masa at a tortilleria in your neighbourhood,” she countered. But I was living in New York City at the time, and there were no tortillerias anywhere near my ’hood. The conversation seriously deflated me (this was my Mexican cooking hero!) and I lost some of my joy for tortilla-making.
That’s why last summer when a review copy of Alex Stupak’s cookbook Tacos: Recipes and Provocations landed on my desk at work, I was delighted when it fell open to the following: “In Defense of Masa Harina”.
“A warm tortilla prepared with harina may not hit the same celestial notes as one made with fresh masa,” it said, “but it is still an absolute revelation if all you’ve ever tasted is reheated, store-bought tortillas. There’s irrefutable value in that, so I stand by it.”
Well, of course, I’ve tasted many a fabulous tortilla made from fresh masa, but I still think the ones made from masa harina (all you need to add is water!) are pretty darn good. And once you get the hang of it, making them is easy — easier than making pancakes, in fact, because the dough is just harina and water. Once again, I’m hooked. Let’s get this taco party going!
Get the recipe: Corn tortillas
Source: The Dallas Morning News
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