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Warm tortillas de harina(flour tortillas) ready to eat! Recipe below.
Do you have memories of a favorite food or dessert that you daydream about regularly and would do almost anything to eat it just one more time? Well, if you're like me, and a food lover, I'm guessing that you're already thinking about your all-time favorite culinary treasure. For me, it's my mama Rose's tortillas de harina(flour tortillas). They were fluffy, soft, and had a flavor similar to warm bread, but somehow better. And the way our house smelled from them cooking on her comal was heavenly!
Tortilla de harina cooking on my comal
Now you might be thinking how can a plain tortilla be this good, well it is but if you add real butter, it's next level! I grew up on a dairy farm, and my mama often made homemade butter. Sometimes my mama would make us super thick tortillas, cook them on her comal until they were crunchy, remove them and poke holes in the tortilla, and slather it with butter. The butter would leak into the holes, and when I took my first bite, I'd be transported to food heaven, and butter would be dripping from my ecstatic chubby cheeks! YES, I LOVED THEM!
My mama made her tortillas almost every day of my childhood. I helped her thousands of times, but I never perfected them without her and never mastered the art of making round tortillas. We had some great laughs over the various shapes of my tortillas, including some that resembled cattle, pigs, sheep, and an entire group known as "the blops." Thankfully my mama was always sweet about my inability to create symmetrical tortillas, and she never tired of trying to help me roll out the masa(dough) to look like her perfectly round tortillas. I'm always shocked when I roll a round tortilla; it's a rare miracle!
Tortilla de harina masa ready for rising
Well, after almost eight years after my mama went to heaven I've practically perfected her recipe so you can start experiencing these gems of happiness too. They're not exactly as good as hers, because they lack her magical love, but they're close.
Many thanks to my Tia Trina and her yummy tortillas for getting me most of the way in recreating my mama's recipe. I cherish her YouTube video and the day we spent creating it! She's a treasure! I used her recipe as a base and kept practicing and tweaking it, and last week I remembered my mama's special ingredient, a tablespoon of bacon fat and that's why I'm ready to share it with you!
In addition to eating our tortillas with real butter, you can also make burritos by filling them with chorizo and papas, refried beans, carne asada, carnitas, veggies, etc. My mama sent me with bags of her homemade burritos to almost every 4-H and school event to share with everyone; it was such a thing that many people from my childhood called me the burrito kid, but that's a blog post for another day!
Tools
tortilla warmer (optional)
Ingredients - Makes 1 dozen fluffy, large flour tortillas or 18 medium size
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups water, 125 degrees(very warm, might need to use a spoon to mix in for a few minutes) - water temperature is a critical piece of this recipe
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lard/bacon fat
Directions - Making your masa (dough) and cooking your tortillas
Tortilla de harina masa balls
Remember to add your love while you prepare this recipe; it's the most important ingredient!
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together with your hands in a large bowl
Add olive oil and mix well; the flour will bead together, and most likely, not all of it will attach to the oil
Slowly add water and continue to mix, similar to kneading bread, until you form a large ball - about 10 minutes.
Add bacon fat/lard and need for about 2 more minutes
Cover with plastic wrap or kitchen towel and let rise for at least 20 minutes and no longer than 1 hour
Tear your masa (dough) and make between 12 and 18 balls
Cover each masa ball with flour and roll it into a tortilla with your rolling pin
Cook on your comal on low to medium heat until done without burning.
Place in towel or tortilla warmer to keep warm
Store leftover tortillas in the refrigerator and reheat on your comal. The microwave will destroy your fluffy tortillas. You can also freeze them for about one month.
Direct message us with any questions!
Happy Cooking!
Molé Mama