Read The Cornbread Gospels Online
Authors: Crescent Dragonwagon
The Cornbread Gospels (15 page)
4.
Combine the self-rising cornmeal, sugar, and dillweed in a large bowl. Set aside.
5.
Combine the eggs, creamed corn, milk, vegetable oil, and hot sauce in a medium bowl. Stir this mixture into the cornmeal mixture in the large bowl. Mix until just blended; do not overbeat.
6.
Turn the batter into the skillet. Dollop the onion mixture evenly over the top, starting at the outside edges and working inward, and sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup cheese. Bake until the shortcake is firm and the cheese is melted and golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve hot, and get ready for major accolades.
ORN
T
ORTILLAS
M
AKES
8
TO
12
TORTILLAS, DEPENDING ON SIZE
And the last shall be first. That is, as we conclude our Southwestern corn celebration, we now come to the mother-root of all cornbreads, the corn tortilla, America’s real, original, native, ancient, contemporary much-loved cornbread. And also its first. In any true telling of cornbread gospels, tortillas are the Book of Genesis.
As you’ll see from the recipe below, this is the simplest of cornbreads: just four ingredients. That said, tortilla making is an art and craft and requires a little bit of practice to perfect. Don’t lose heart at the length of these directions: you’ll get it after the first couple of tortillas; I’m just going to hold your hand as we walk through it this first time.
2 cups masa harina (see Masa Class,
page 85
)
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups very warm but not boiling water
Additional water and masa as needed
1.
Place the masa harina in a bowl with the salt, and add the hot water all at once. Stir together with your hands; almost instantly the masa harina will absorb the water. Knead it, by hand, for 3 or 4 minutes. You want a soft dough, moist, but not in the least sticky. When you’re finished kneading, virtually all the masa should be in a nice ball, no unincorporated bits of dough or flour, and none sticking to your hands. If this hasn’t happened, amend with small amounts of additional water or masa harina until the right texture is achieved (if you’re uncertain as to whether the right texture has been reached, cover the dough and let it rest; when it’s time to make tortillas, one tortilla will tell you whether the masa is wet, dry, or just right—see step 4). Also note: Masa dough is incredibly forgiving; you cannot overknead it. Any scraps of masa can easily be kneaded back in and re-formed into new tortillas.
2.
Cover the prepared masa and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
3.
In the meantime, cut two circles from heavy-duty plastic (a gallon-size zip-top freezer bag works well) to fit your tortilla press (see What It Takes to Make a Tortilla,
page 86
). Set aside.
4.
Place a cast-iron skillet or griddle on the stove and turn the heat to a good, steady medium-high. As the skillet heats, pinch out a golf ball–size lump of the masa dough, and roll it between your palms until it forms a ball. The dough should neither stick to, nor crumble in, your hands.
5.
Open your tortilla press. Lay one circle of plastic on the bottom plate. Put the ball of dough on this, flattening it slightly with the heel of your hand. Top it with the second circle of heavy plastic.
6.
Lower the hinged upper plate onto the bottom plate. Once it’s shut, quickly raise the tortilla press’s handle, then lower it until it catches. Don’t push it all the way down at first; until you get the hang of it, which you will soon enough, making super-thin tortillas can be tricky.
7.
Open the tortilla press. Wow! Prepare to impress yourself. Your tortilla will be beautifully round, 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and of a consistent thickness—a little thicker than commercial tortillas. Your tortillas might also be smaller in dimension than the factory-mades, depending on what size masa ball you used.
8.
Leaving the tortilla on the press, gently peel the plastic layer off the upper side of the tortilla. Lift the raw tortilla, still on its lower circle of plastic, from the press. Gently reverse it, plastic and all, onto the palm of your less-dominant hand (in other words, the right-handed
would place the tortilla in their left palm). The plastic-covered side of the tortilla is now up; the tortilla itself is resting gently on your palm.
9.
Move next to the stove, facing the skillet, and very gently peel the plastic up and off the tortilla. (This is the only tricky part until you get used to it, and it isn’t very tricky.) I’ve found this works a little more easily than peeling the tortilla off the plastic.
10.
Slide the tortilla off your hand, briskly but gently—no dramatic pizza dough–like flippings—into the skillet, which by now should be very, very hot (you may want to lower the heat just slightly, but not much).
11.
Let the tortilla cook in the hot skillet or on the griddle for 35 to 40 seconds on the first side; as you’re doing this, proceed to shape and flatten the next tortilla. Gently lift the tortilla in the skillet. The underneath of a tortilla made from yellow masa harina will have become a paler yellow; whether white or yellow, it should be nicely freckled with golden-brown spots. If it is, turn it over with a spatula or two forks, or, if you have deft hands, with your fingers. Cook the second side for about 40 seconds (with luck it may puff slightly); then turn back to the first side for another 20 to 30 seconds. The whole process should not take much longer than a minute and a half to 2 minutes; less time if your tortilla is on the thin side, more if it’s thicker. And of course, once you get the hang of it, you can have more than one going at a time, and even more than one skillet.
12.
Remove the tortilla(s) from the griddle as they’re done, and repeat, the process with the remaining dough. To keep the tortillas warm for up to 20 minutes, wrap them in a clean dish towel, adding each tortilla as it’s done. For longer than that—up to 1 hour—wrap the towel-swaddled tortilla stack in aluminum foil and place it in a very low oven.
N
OTE
:
Black spots on your tortillas mean your skillet is too hot. A stiff, not pliable tortilla that is not blackened, however, means your skillet was the right temperature, but that you left the tortilla in it too long.
To learn how to make tortillas all the way from scratch, starting with the dry corn itself, go to www.cornbreadgospels.com.
Bueno como el pan
(as good as bread)
—
A
S
PANISH COMPLIMENT
A
LL
A
BOUT
T
ORTILLAS
M
ASA
C
LASS
: W
HAT’S
M
ASA
H
ARINA
?
Tortillas are made from their own special type of corn flour, called masa harina. Please note: corn
flour,
not corn
meal.
Masa harina’s consistency is flourlike, not meal-like, and its special texture, distinctive flavor, and one-of-a-kind scent—a scent instantly recognizable as that of tortillas—derive from the fact that the corn it is ground from is precooked and treated with lime. (For the full story on this ancient liming process, called nixtamalization, see the Pantry,
page 355
.)
Just as you can purchase ready-made tortillas of either white or yellow cornmeal, so you can purchase white or yellow masa to make tortillas at home. If you were blindfolded, you probably couldn’t distinguish the taste difference between the two, so preferences are based on which one looks more appealing to you and what color tortilla you grew up eating (if you grew up eating tortillas).
Masa is easy to find in America today. Maseca, the most popular brand in Mexico, is in almost any U.S. supermarket in a community where there is a sizable Latino population. And you’d be hard-pressed to enter any American supermarket and
not
find the Quaker brand, labeled simply Masa Harina. Another excellent brand sometimes available is White Wings (in Spanish, La Paloma) Masa para Tortillas. If you can’t find it locally, order it through
www.melissaguerra.com
.
These three and many other masa harinas are mass-produced, “enriched, degerminated” products, not whole-grain. At a health food store or natural food market, you can sometimes find organic stone-ground whole-grain masa harina, which works like a charm and is both tastier and better for you. (You can also find it on the web, at
www.bobsredmill.com
.) Whatever you do, do NOT, under any circumstances, attempt to use cornmeal instead of masa harina in tortilla making. It will not work.
Now, just to clear up one other possible source of confusion. While “masa harina” refers to the corn flour we’ve been talking about, just plain “masa” is the name for the corn dough itself, from which tortillas are made. You can make or procure masa in several different ways, but in this book, we’re going to keep it simple, and just stick to the
previous recipe
, using masa harina.
W
HAT
I
T
T
AKES TO
M
AKE A
T
ORTILLA
The rhythmic sound of corn tortillas being patted out is sometimes called the heartbeat of Mexico. But if you didn’t grow up making them, it will be a while, if ever, before you are patting them out by hand. Instead, you will want to employ a few low-tech items and supplies:
• a large, well-seasoned, heavy cast-iron skillet, griddle, or
comal
(a traditional flat cast-iron griddle without sides, about 9 inches in diameter; in earlier times, these were made of very flat heated stones). You can’t use a lightweight pan because you’ll need steady, even heat for awhile. A lighter skillet will warp; a nonstick skillet will get that funky, troubling, been-on-the burner-too-long smell.
• a tortilla press, which is two hinged-together large heavy flat metal plates, between which you flatten the tortillas to a consistent thinness by pressing down on a handle. You probably think you can get by with a rolling pin and your fingers; well, you probably can’t, and certainly not at first. Tortilla presses are easily found. If you can’t find them at your local kitchenware store or Mexican market, order them through
www.melissaguerra.com
. If you really don’t want to use a press, use two plates, pressing the dough out between the
backs
of the plates. This, in effect, creates a quasi-tortilla press. Obviously, you want to choose plates with backs that are more or less flat. It’ll work, but a press is much easier.
• heavy-duty plastic bags, such as gallon-size zip-tops made for use in the freezer. Cut one bag open into two squares. Trim the squares to just slightly bigger than the tortilla press. (Now don’t ask, “So what did the Mayans use for plastic?” Remember, nobody loves a smart-ass.)
With these items, a stove, technique, and your masa, you’re ready to go.
S
ERVING AND
R
EHEATING
H
OMEMADE
T
ORTILLAS
Once you’ve made homemade tortillas you’ll want to either serve them immediately, or keep them warm as follows: Stack them one atop the other as they come off the griddle, covering them with a towel or napkin to hold the warmth. They are traditionally served in a covered tortilla basket, still wrapped, and are rewrapped after each diner has taken his or hers.
Though they are far superior when freshly made, you can successfully rewarm homemade room-temp tortillas with pretty
good results in one of two ways. Either stack 5 or 6 on top of each other, wrapping them securely in foil, and pop them into a 275°F to 300°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Or, if you just have a couple, get the griddle nice and hot again and give each tortilla a quick reheat for 10 to 15 seconds per side.
C
LASS
P
ROJECT
I have a core belief that every American owes it to him- or herself to make, at least once, the really, really, really serious, from-scratch tortillas the way the Native Americans did it. Why? Because, besides making an
amazing
tortilla, you put your hands in, and on, the lifeblood of America; you take communion with your own history, making your own masa directly from corn, by soaking dried corn overnight in water that you have treated with either commercially available or homemade lime, hulling the corn (easier than it sounds), and grinding it (in a small mill or food processor). This is obviously far more labor intensive than making corn tortillas from ready-to-use masa harina, and I know, pragmatically, that very few of you might wish to take the time and trouble to do this. If you are one of the few, though, I want to tell you how to do it—without taking up the time and energy of your fellow readers. So instead I’ve put the complete from-scratch directions on the Internet. How’s that for handy? Just go to www.cornbreadgospels.com and there, my dears, you will find it (along with a few other things that I just couldn’t fit in this book).
For those of you who are teachers, or have children in the fourth or fifth grade, I have to tell you, making corn tortillas from the corn up is one major blast of a class or home project (supervised, of course), and it teaches one piece of American history as almost nothing else can. So go on and check it out.
W
HIM AND
S
USTENANCE
In Mexico, the farther south you get from the border, the more the corn tortilla, not the flour tortilla, rules, as it has for thousands of years. It nourishes: Each day, the average contemporary Mexican eats a little over a pound of dough made of corn, mostly in the form of tortillas. In the countryside, this jumps to seventy percent of the daily caloric intake. And lest you recoil in anti-carb horror, consider that the tortilla is far more nutritious than plain old corn itself, thanks to nixtamalization (see Pantry,
page 355
), a process used since the ancient native inhabitants of the Americas first began domesticating wild corn. And although there are countless and seductive regional variations in seasonings and accompaniments, the process of making masa, the corn dough that is the basis of tortillas, has been the same throughout the
country as a whole since before the Spaniards arrived.
The average six- to seven-inch corn tortilla has about sixty calories and a gram or so each of fat and protein. (The protein content is considerably amplified in beautiful synergy when the tortilla is eaten with beans.) The same tortilla also offers its eater twelve grams of carbohydrate, forty-four milligrams of calcium, and no gluten, a component of wheat and rye flours to which a surprising number of people are allergic.
But lest you think that corn tortillas, being daily bread, are strictly about sober sustenance in Mexico, consider the panoply of that country’s appetizers, most of which use corn masa, griddled or fried, with a touch of herbs, shredded meat, cheese, chile, or some other combination infinitely varied but always savory. They’re called
antojitos,
which means “little whims.”
Thus the corn tortilla, to our neighbors to the south, is not only daily bread, but heart and soul, pleasure and laughter.
T
HE
N
EIGHBORHOOD
T
ORTILLERIA
Thanks to the all-American reinvention that is immigration’s greatest gift, many once south-of-the-border neighbors now live down the block. A vibrant Latino population means that, today, you’d be hard-pressed to find an American supermarket without both wheat and corn tortillas. But if you think supermarket tortillas are pretty good, even just okay, then, my friend, believe me—you’ve never had a fresh one, and you have a treat ahead of you.
The next best thing to making your own is to find yourself a neighborhood
tortilleria,
or tortilla bakery. Virtually every village in Mexico has at least one; and the same is true in almost every Mexican American community in America. Find the nearest Latino area and drive around; the odds are excellent that you’ll find not only Mexican grocery stores, but a tortilleria or two (or many more, if you’re in a large metropolitan area). Why? Because often cooking the foods of their homelands is the first or second step for American immigrants. The capital with which these brave new arrivals start these tiny businesses is small, and it rarely goes to décor or upscale location.
Besides fresh tortillas, usually incredibly reasonably priced and infinitely better than those mass-produced and sold at the supermarket, a tortilleria often sells masa—fresh corn dough—for you to make your own warm-from-the-griddle tortillas at home.
In which case you don’t even have to mix masa harina and water: Just buy the dough and follow the recipe for Corn Tortillas (
page 82
), picking up at step 3.
