Original post author: Jessica
It’s been a long time since we posted on the Comet Blog, 5 months to be exact. And WOW, those 5 months really proved to be the strangest roller coaster ride that nobody asked to be a part of. We have been socially distancing due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Boston, together with our dog Violet in all 800 square feet of our apartment. There have been ups and downs but mostly I wanted to spend some time outlining some things we are learning along the way.
First thing’s first, cooking! I’ve always liked cooking (much to my mom’s surprise!) and I’ve taken the opportunity of being home more hours of the day to explore some new recipes. And what is a girl to do when you have the fillings for tacos but no tortillas? You make your OWN flour tortillas! What an idea! But isn’t it hard? Don’t you need a tortilla press? When I told Ryan I was making flour tortillas from scratch the look on his face asked all of these questions. But that didn’t scare me. It can’t be impossible, right?
Right! After about 30 minutes we found out that making your own flour tortillas takes very few ingredients, is actually relatively easy, and they taste delicious. Huge thanks for the inspiration from Mythical Kitchen, their YouTube video with instructions is linked below, our instructions differ slightly but either works well I’m sure. Enjoy!
Flour Tortillas (for those days when you run out but still want tacos)
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
¼ cup cold butter
¾ cup water at 105-110 degrees
Instructions:
Whisk together flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut butter into small cubes, add to flour, then rub together with your hands until the fat disappears into the flour. It will make sense when you do it.
Stir in 105-110 degree water to the flour and mix with a fork until a shaggy dough forms. It will look...shaggy, and like it could never possibly be flour tortillas.
Dump dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead with your hands until a solid, smooth ball forms. If the dough is too sticky, add some more flour but sparingly. Knead for about 10 minutes which will feel like a long time, but you have nowhere else to be so do it for the tortillas!
Divide the dough into 6 pieces and roll them into small dough balls. Let them sit on a plate for 15-30 minutes. It feels unnecessary, I know, but resting the dough is important so don’t skip this step!
Roll out each dough ball on a lightly floured surface (I never cleaned up the first one!) until they are very thin but still hold their shape. Roll out using a rolling pin or a bottle of wine, whatever. Roll back and forth once, and turn the dough a quarter turn each time - this will provide nearly round results.
Cook each tortilla in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat for 40-60 seconds a side, or until they are no longer translucent. Push down any areas that aren’t touching the pan because of bubbles with a spatula to keep the cooking going. You could also use a nonstick pan too, I’m sure. In either case the pan should be dry, no oil or butter, but hot.
Pull them out of the pan and be as amazed as I was. You just made flour tortillas from scratch! Store them in a kitchen towel until you fill them with all of your delicious things: taco filling, scrambled eggs, cheese, whatever you have laying around will be better when wrapped in these fresh tortillas, I promise.
For visuals, check out the Mythical Kitchen's recent video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkQ3T3Tqjrc
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