A lot of what I see and hear from people planning out their food storage
and how they're going to use it post-collapse basically involves heat
'n' eat. While few will dispute that MREs and freeze-dried entrees have
their place, it will get pretty old rather quickly. And they're kinda
expensive. And not all that healthy as long-term eating choices.
I thought I'd cover today the beginnings of a simple Mexican dinner, the
flour tortilla. Future posts will add in other items using long-term
and expanded storage foods and skills to learn.
Flour Tortillas
4 cups flour
1/3 cup bacon grease (or lard or shortening, or I've read of some people using oil)
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups hot water
In a large bowl, stir the salt into the flour and then cut in the bacon
grease or other fat using a pastry blender or a fork. Stir in the hot
water and then as soon as cool enough to handle start kneading, and
continue until it is smooth and elastic, about eight minutes. It is far
better to have dough that is a little sticky rather than too dry.
Pinch off a ball of dough about the size of a golf ball, form it into a
ball, and start rolling it out. Roll very thin and put on cast iron
skillet to cook, watching carefully so that it doesn't burn.
Of course, the number of tortillas this recipe makes is going to vary
according to how large you make them. But I can say that this recipe
feeds my family of seven, sometimes with a few left over, depending on
what else is being served that night.
A few thoughts, observations, and tips:
You can use white or wheat flour, or any blend of the two. In our home we use only whole wheat.
Some tortilla recipes call for baking powder (one teaspoon for the above
recipe). It produces a thicker, bread-ier tortilla. It's what I was
raised on, but my family is pretty happy without it, and I think the
tortillas are a little easier to roll out without baking powder.
Tortillas almost never come out round. After 25 years of tamale
parties, which included tortillas, we found out my Mexican aunt had been
cheating the whole time--she used a knife to trim her tortillas.
My Mexican grandmother had two rolling pins: one was a section of oak
closet dowel and the other was the sawed off (and sanded) end of a
broomstick. I had a regular rolling pin with handles when I was first
married, but closet dowel rolling pins were what I grew up with. And
they're lighter, smaller, and cheaper so that you can have extras for
kitchen help. (My son made ours with 1 1/4" closet dowels, each cut to
be 8-9" long, and then sanded and oiled them.
Hand rolled tortillas just taste better than tortillas made on a tortilla press.
That being said, if I didn't have a tortilla press, we might only have
tortillas twice a year here, with our modern life. Post-collapse, I
think they'll be a fairly common item on the dinner menu, but there's a
good chance everyone will be rolling their own. They're fairly
fool-proof, cook quickly, smell great, and everyone loves them.
Links to related posts:
Wheat
Refried Beans
Salsa
Spanish Rice
15 february 2019
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