Experimenting with Tortillas

I wanted to branch out from The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook by Cybele Pascal that I use 90% of the time, and decided to get "The Ultimate Food Allergy Cookbook and Survival Guide" by Nicolette Dumke. I began experimenting with tortilla-making. I was also tired of buying expensive corn-only tortillas at Whole Foods, and they really didn't hold together well even when I could find them. I happened upon some Instant Corn Masa flour (Maseca) at Whole Foods and now I could never go back to buying tortillas.

The corn ones turned out great. I was worried that they didn't look as perfectly round as the store-bought ones, but my husband said they tasted "yummy and homemade".

There are directions on the flour package, but basically you mix flour, salt, and water together to form a "play-dough" consistency, roll into little balls, and flatten with a rolling pin between two pieces of plastic wrap. Then, cook over medium heat for about 50 seconds on each side. You kind of have to practice a little to get the right consistency. I found it worked best to pound mine out a little with the rolling pin to get a good circle shape started before I roll, and I cover the balls with a damp paper towel so they don't dry out quickly. I like my cast iron skillet to cook them in.

The only other tortillas I've tried are the rye, and those were a little more tricky (just learning to work with the rye flour), but overall they turned out pretty good.

More updates to come on this one (I've got to look into tortilla makers, try different flours, etc). Apparently you can make tortillas out of kamut, barley, milo-arrowroot, amaranth, white sweet potato flour, rye, teff, buckwheat, yam-water chestnut flour, spelt, quinoa, cassava, oat, rice, chestnut, malanga-arrowroot, and garbanzo.