homemade soft tortilla shells

[jimbarry]

We call 'em pita wraps. 



 



 


3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup veg oil (or any other type oil)
1 cup luke warm/cool water

Water amount is variable. I typically put in an extra 1/6 cup to get  a soft pliable dough.

Sift the dry ingredients. 
Add in the wet ingredients
Mix until you get a soft easy to handle dough. Typically 3-4 minutes in a counter top 5qt mixer.
Divide into portions depending on the size you want the shells to be. I weigh them at 45g.
Rest 15 minutes covered.
Roll out thin.
Cook in frying pan. See video here

20211104 192900 making pita wraps (naan or flatbread) - YouTube

[SwampDonkey]

Great stuff. I watch a channel of an young Alaskan couple who make a lot of those. If they want a different twist they cut them 6 ways, fry them in oil, and have tortilla chips for their home made salsa dip. 13 minutes in.

Homemade Tomato Sauce & Red Salsa | Canning Our Food for Winter - YouTube

[kantuckid]

Tortillas: Wow, those look good!
I'm a fanboy for Mexican or Tex-Mex food. I have "eaten my way" over 21,000 motorcycle miles around Mexico. I like both flour and cornmeal based tortillas. You might try experimenting with some masa or cornmeal as a combo with flour in tortillas. The combo version is sold in retail some, not common near me though. Pioneer Woman  uses them from her OK based cooking TV show.
Certain Walmarts and other groceries cater to Hispanics and carry items not easy to find.  

I've watched Mexican's make them by hand on both hot stones and a griddle. I've also taken a look/see into the common in most every Mexican town or neighborhoods in larger cities, tortilla factories. In both my motorcycle and my wife accompanied fly and drive or drive into Mexico trips over many years I have NEVER!!! seen a corn tortilla other than homemade or retail grocery prepackaged.

 A couple years back the NYT's did an article about tortillas-flour vs. corn and of course many Latino's commented on which they'd grown up eating, with others saying which is authentic, etc..
 
In San Diego, CA's now touristy area called "Old Town", there's a famous restaurant with two ladies making tortillas on a huge hot top tortilla making affair that's like 3' in diameter. Several of our local Mexican restaurants have homemade tortillas on weekends only, most don't.  

We've made a few but mostly stick to making our own tamales & jalapeno poppers to augment Mexican meals.

This week we ate Mexican out after my eye doc appt at a nearby Mexican place. I had tacos carnitas which were loaded on flat, soft, white corn tortillas that were double thin layers. I pulled at an edge and they are stuck together which indicates to me that they are stacked in doubles as they are rolled out. Many people think a taco is only eaten on those fragile, crispy shells in a box you buy in a grocery. I do like them but we do the more Mexican way at home using store bought super size, thin, corn tortillas, heated on a griddle in olive oil. We each do our own so they'll be hot when eaten-sort of... 
A handy dandy help to loading tortillas at home (if you fold them) is to buy an Amazon what I'll call "zig-zag" plastic tortilla rack which is a heat bent shot plastic gizmo that allows them standing open to pile on goodies. Try it! We never buy the fragile crispy taco shells. 
I'm wonder if the Mexican grocery sells those double shell ones? They are as thin as a single one you buy pre-made. 

Our server this week was from Oaxaca, Mexico-the state not the city.That state alone has many languages spoken by indigenous and also Spanish. One regions famous for their intricate carvings. My favorite state in Mexico.  I told him about my favorite all time burrito from two old ladies who set up next to a very old church in the zocolo there at noon and bring their hot stone with them to heat their burritos. The tortillas are huge-say 12-14" dia, then they spread their re-fried beans thinly and then a secret mixture on top that and roll them. These gals are (were probably) like 80's or 90's and a relative or friend brings them in most days to cook & sell. It's a foodies dream.  

[nativewolf]

@kentuckid making me hungry...and I still have to put the lunch together.

[mike_belben]

Boy that does sound good.  I have my own rednex-mex burito recipe.  


Either the breakfast version: potato, bacon and venison and/or scrambled egg




Or the dinner one.  pepper, onion, venison with cheese sour cream and/or a strip of ranch in a tortilla rolled up and fried back in the pan with some olive oil until its alm crisp and almost oozing that sweet, sweet cheese.

[SwampDonkey]

The Alaskan youngsters used home made rendered lard in their bread if you noticed. They have a video from not too long ago on the process. ;D

[kantuckid]

Does my Lipitor explode in contact with lard?  :

My wife's people all cooked with lard until Crisco came out, then the younger ones like her Mom switched to shortening. I know this is anecdotal but they mostly died in their 90's with dementia, not heart disease? 

In Mexico I've seen quite a bit of goat meat which I always asked about cause I dislike goat, lamb or venison. I'm a pork, beef or seafood guy...When I couldn't read a menu down there I'd go MOO! or make a swimming hand move or go OINK! "No BAA" :D 

[jimbarry]

The Alaskan youngsters used home made rendered lard in their bread if you noticed. They have a video from not too long ago on the process. ;D

I've made them before with leftover bacon grease.  

[SwampDonkey]

Lard is far superior to Crisco. That Crisco's not saving your heart. Now that is funny. :D :D

[kantuckid]

Loretta Lynn might beg to differ?  :D She pushed Crisco back when. 

[mike_belben]

In the process of looking up info when i rendered lard maybe a month ago i stumbled onto a peculiar piece of lost history.   Early 1900s Upton sinclair wrote a book that convinced america people routinely fell in the chicago render vats and got liquified.  Right at the same time proctor and gamble had a dying candle factory thanks to the spread of electric lighting and had lots of cottonseed oil to press. A german chemist hydrogenated vegetable oil into a lard substitute, they bought it and came out with crisco. went on a smear campaign against lard saying itd clog your arteries like it clogs your drain, vegetables are good for you, its kosher etc.  Turns out crisco is the one thats worse for you.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair

Who Killed Lard? : Planet Money : NPR


Food safety act was the eventual result of sinclairs book. So weve got that guy to thank for the centralization of meat processing and low cattle prices for producers today.  If jeff up the road is butchering his own cow when i stop by to say hello, its illegal for me to give him $20 to throw some of it in my cooler because he isnt a licensed slaughter facility.  Govt must protect me from me i guess.  

[snobdds]

anytime you see hydrogenated in fats, stay away.  Those are things like Crisco, and vegetable oils. 

It's funny, but the best things to cook with are still; butter, lard, and nut oils like olive and avocado. 

I use to watch my grandpa dip bread into bacon grease and dump salt on all his food.  He died of old age. 

 

[mike_belben]

That is the conclusion ive come to as well and what we cook with. 

[WV Sawmiller]

  I tried them today hoping for that Naan taste we like so well with our Indian food. We had some leftover turkey and a jar of Tikka Masala simmer sauce so cooked up a batch of that and made the Tortilla/Naan bread. They were a little bland and next time I will try cooking in a little garlic oil or such, Maybe even butter. I used Crisco, They were very good and I'll try more adjustments.

   My biggest problem was when rolling them out instead of turning out round they were mostly a little three corned and looked like either an old athletic supporter with the elastic about worn out or the lower half of the state of Texas which, come to think about it, looks the same. ;D

   I may try adding a little more baking powder next time and see if I can get a little more rise out of them. I got a few air bubbles but not the great big ones I see in most Naan. I am sure brushing with a little garlic butter would help. They did have the nice browned/almost burned spots I was looking for.


   Thanks for posting. They are good and not too hard to fix.

[HemlockKing]

anytime you see hydrogenated in fats, stay away.  Those are things like Crisco, and vegetable oils.

It's funny, but the best things to cook with are still; butter, lard, and nut oils like olive and avocado.

I use to watch my grandpa dip bread into bacon grease and dump salt on all his food.  He died of old age.

My gramps did that too, bacon right out of the pan onto pieces of toast to absorb all the grease lol 

[sawguy21]

You guys are making me hungry ;D Good tex mex food is scarce here in the frozen north, occasionally I'll buy soft tortilla shells and make my own burritos but haven't quite mastered them, canned refried beans just don't cut it. I got spoiled in SoCal.

[HemlockKing]

You guys are making me hungry ;D Good tex mex food is scarce here in the frozen north, occasionally I'll buy soft tortilla shells and make my own burritos but haven't quite mastered them, canned refried beans just don't cut it. I got spoiled in SoCal.

Burritos are the best especially for on the go, haven't had me a burrito in a while. I make em with lots of chilli pepper,  kidney beans, ground beef, bell peppers, and graded cheese to melt in at the end before I wrap them up, and reheat them for 30 seconds 

[snobdds]

You guys are making me hungry ;D Good tex mex food is scarce here in the frozen north, occasionally I'll buy soft tortilla shells and make my own burritos but haven't quite mastered them, canned refried beans just don't cut it. I got spoiled in SoCal.

Just put a big spoon full of lard to the can.  Then mix up a lot of air into them and fry.
That is how most Mexican restaurants do it.

[kantuckid]

Based on my own reading, my doctors advice, I should avoid lard, butter, etc., as there is a vast difference between maintaining a healthy, say Mediterranean type of diet along with proper exercise and low stress given the 3 stents in my chest. 

You must separate the above "lard & butter is better" for those with stents like myself. Eating healthy oils and avoiding high cholesterol, saturated fat foods matters for me. 

No doubt about it-there are medical articles that are based on the healthy use of lards, butter, etc., saying that they don't cause heart disease or clogged arteries. But, and it's a huge but, I do already have heart disease and stents. I doubt I got it from eating wrong as I've always ate properly and exercised, etc.. I do have the genetics of heart disease. 
If I eat too much Crisco or FF's fried in "healthy oils" it's not gonna make me live lots longer either. 
Back to tortillas which brand name ones don't have lard in them from factories in USA.  

[snobdds]

Based on my own reading, my doctors advice, I should avoid lard, butter, etc., as there is a vast difference between maintaining a healthy, say Mediterranean type of diet along with proper exercise and low stress given the 3 stents in my chest.

You must separate the above "lard & butter is better" for those with stents like myself. Eating healthy oils and avoiding high cholesterol, saturated fat foods matters for me.

No doubt about it-there are medical articles that are based on the healthy use of lards, butter, etc., saying that they don't cause heart disease or clogged arteries. But, and it's a huge but, I do already have heart disease and stents. I doubt I got it from eating wrong as I've always ate properly and exercised, etc.. I do have the genetics of heart disease.
If I eat too much Crisco or FF's fried in "healthy oils" it's not gonna make me live lots longer either.
Back to tortillas which brand name ones don't have lard in them from factories in USA.  

I think it's best to stay far away from hydrogenated fats.  Here is a meta analysis of 20 different studies on saturated fats.  Our bodies have evolved to live on saturated fats and not hydrogenated fats. 
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease - PubMed

[snobdds]

Back to tortillas which brand name ones don't have lard in them from factories in USA.  

all of them don't use lard.  Lard spoils and is not good for a shelf stable item like tortillas. 

[sawguy21]

I don't worry about it, I eat what I like but in moderation although Christmas will put me to the test. ;D My cholesterol is a little on the high side and won't budge, so be it.

[SwampDonkey]

all of them don't use lard.  Lard spoils and is not good for a shelf stable item like tortillas.

I agree lard does not have the shelf life, but the alternative will taste like soap eventually. :D We had to preserve things during the war effort. The big push for preservatives was on. No one wants rotten food on the front line, although I'm sure rotten horse meat was ate by the indigenous people on occasion. :D In our grandparents day, they did not go into town to buy tortilla chips off the shelf and the only cookies was fresh that day from the town bakery. Boy how shopping has changed. :D :D Lard, flour and sugar/molasses is all my grandparents ever got from a store. A lot of grandmother's cookies had no sugar at all (dad's mom) because grandfather had diabetes and craved sugar. If you look at a lot of old cook books, they use 2 to 3 times as much sugar as you need. :D

[kantuckid]

Back to tortillas which brand name ones don't have lard in them from factories in USA.  

all of them don't use lard.  Lard spoils and is not good for a shelf stable item like tortillas.

I was saying that they don't have lard in factory made ones...