Tia Trina Mercado
Tia Trina can turn flour, baking powder, salt, and vegetable oil into pure tortilla magic. I recently had the good fortune of filming her as she taught me to make her sinfully delicious tortillas.
Sadly this was the one recipe of my mothers that I was never able to learn. So when this tortilla pro walked into my kitchen with her very own wooden tortilla rolling pin and comal, I paid attention, took notes and tried to soak up every ounce of her 65 years of tortilla mastery in one afternoon.
Tia Trina didn’t use a bowl to mix her masa. She built a volcano out of flour, salt and, baking powder on my kitchen counter. Down the middle and she added warm water and oil without leaking a single drop through the flour walls. I’d never seen this technique before and was completely in awe. She kneaded the flour like a master sculptor and transformed it into smooth, fluffy masa. Then she pulled off pieces to form perfectly shaped masa balls and set them aside to rest so they’d be easy to roll.
She patiently tried to teach me to make the masa balls and roll tortillas into perfect circles. It was great fun and I haven’t quiet mastered her recipe, but my tia believes there’s hope and I just need to practice. She’s also trained several of her relatives and even some pro baseball players that have gone on to train their friends how to make her yummy tortillas.
Our taster (Molé Man) had 4 tortillas with butter and has sworn off ever eating store bought tortillas ever again and is trying to convince Tia Trina that she needs to live with us.
Thank you Tia Trina for sharing your outrageously yummy flour tortilla making mastery with me! My heart is filled with joy and gratitude and I had so much fun cooking with you! I’ll be making this on my own soon!
To learn how to make Tia Trina’s flour tortillas please have the ingredients below ready and watch her videos. Happy tortilla making!
Flour Tortilla Ingredients
- 7 cups of all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 cups water (must be 40 degrees)
- 1 ¾ vegetable oil (Corn is best)
Big hugs,
Molé Mama