Several months ago I went looking on Amazon for a bigger tortilla press, one to make tortillas large enough for sandwich wraps. I’d been wanting one for a while, been promised one for my birthday (but it was months before my birthday at the time, so it was forgotten), and when it didn’t arrive, I took matters into my own hands. I selected the CucinaPro despite the low rating for it; none of the others were rated any higher, so it wasn’t like I had a lot of choices in the 10” size. And I’m not too sure why it’s rated low; mine works just fine. (And aren’t you glad I don’t do that Amazon Affiliate nonsense that might skew a blogger’s review of an item?)
Anyway, the new tortilla press also came with a handy little booklet of recipes, including one for black bean flour tortillas. Of course, there are recipes for regular flour tortillas, and corn tortillas, and some Indian flatbreads. The one that caught my eye first incorporated black beans into the flour tortilla dough.
But black bean tortillas? Sounds a bit sketchy, doesn’t it? I was concerned. But not enough to just try them on my own. There had to be other guinea pigs. It would be only fair.
Black Bean Flour Tortillas
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup canned black beans, drained
1/3 cup bacon grease
2 teaspoons salt
2/3 cup warm water
Combine the first four ingredients in the bowl of a food processor until the mixture is crumbly. Add the water and process until the dough comes together in a ball and then a few seconds longer. Remove the dough. (It should be a bit sticky at this point, about chocolate chip cookie dough consistency.) Knead it on the counter for a few minutes until the flour absorbs the water and the dough becomes smooth. Divide the dough into 24 balls and let rest, covered, for 30 minutes.
Five to ten minutes before cooking, plug in the tortilla press to pre-heat. Cook tortillas.
Family reviews: Aaron and King of the Picky Eaters said they were only okay. Something about the texture being off. I ate half of one before dinner with some butter—the only true way to test a tortilla. I don’t know what they’re fussing about. Buttercup thought they were terrific. Becky said they were really good as well. I served them with beans, salad, and fruit tonight, and we’ll have the rest tomorrow night as quesadillas.
I will admit that the appearance may be a little off-putting. Little bits of black bean skin are clearly visible. That’s really the only fault in this recipe. I even used red wheat (as opposed to the usual white wheat) as that’s what I’ve been grinding for sourdough. Little children might balk at the appearance. However, I think that being able to incorporate some beans into tortillas is great. Fantastic. A healthy way of getting a few more beans into the diet. It takes a little more time to go downstairs and fetch a can of beans, but other than that, it doesn’t take any more time to make this recipe than my usual. I think I may start using this recipe for all of our tortillas. Maybe it will give me the confidence to try using beans in a few more bread recipes.
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Sounds like the bean bread recipe that fed the Roman army.
ReplyDeleteSounds like what I ate a lot of when doing missionary work in South America.
Thanks for the reminder and testing.
Michael