homemade flour tortillas

One thing I love about working from home is getting little bits and pieces of things done between writing sessions. In all honesty, it doesn't always work; mostly I get too excited/distracted by the little bits and pieces and everything goes out of whack and the day is ruined. So I try to get into the office most days. But sometimes - once in a while - I stay home and everything just works. I get to hang out with Quincy, get some washing done, eat a better lunch and everything on my work list gets crossed off. Those days make me feel like I'm really winning at life.

Tragically, today is not one of those days. But that's okay. I've written a little, nursed my slightly swollen throat with constant sips of ginger tea like the hypochondriac I have become, and I've made flour tortillas.

Homemade flour tortillas are both really easy to cook and significantly more delicious than the store-bought we typically find in Australia. They're fluffy, supple and even taste good cold - which is more than I can say for those snowy white discs in the plastic packaging (home very very late one night I ate one straight out of the pack and decided, even in my jolly state, that next time I wanted to taste a cold commercially-made tortilla I could just mix some flour with water to a smooth paste in a teacup and drink it).

To achieve that really nice crepe-like texture, you need to include some kind of fat. I will happily admit that these ones are made with lard, just as those you typically find in Mexico are. That super-white, greasy fat definitely produces the finest tortillas with the best kind of bubbling and flakiness. But I understand that cooking with animal fat is not for everyone. The good news is that you can easily swap the lard for an equal amount of vegetable shortening and get a really similar result. And yes, you can make tortillas with olive oil and even butter; I have and they can also be very tasty, but you'll get a different result texturally and a less authentic flavour profile.

The other thing you can change up is the flour you use. Here I've used a combination of plain and atta flours and I really like the flavour this produces. The atta flour is also high in gluten and helps to produce a lovely smooth and elastic dough that is really easy to work with. So even if you're a homemade pastry or bread virgin, you can still make flour tortillas. It's kinda like getting to third base in the world of breadmaking: not as risky as a yeast-risen loaf (home-run), with an end result that's less reliant on experience - but still very, very sexy.*

And third base on a Tuesday afternoon is not too bad. There's days left yet to win at life.

*I do not necessarily agree with this analogy, but I don't have time to think it through.


Homemade flour tortillas
Makes 12


1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup hot water
1 3/4 cup of plain (all-purpose) flour
1 cup atta flour (or wholemeal, or more plain)
75 g lard, roughly chopped (or vegetable shortening)

1. Add hot water and salt to a small bowl and stir to dissolve salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, gently whisk the plain and atta flours with a fork to combine. Add the lard or shortening and, using the tips of your fingers, rub the fat and flours together until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

3. Add 3/4 of the salted water and use a fork to combine. Continue to add as much water as necessary to bring the mixture together in a stiff dough; different flours will have different absorbencies. Use your hands to draw the mixture together in a ball and knead lightly on the counter until the dough is uniform and smooth - 3 - 5 minutes. Cut dough into 12 equal pieces and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rest 30 minutes. This will relax the gluten in the dough and make it easier to work with.

4. To roll tortillas, very lightly dust the counter top and rolling pin with flour. Roll each ball until about the thickness of poster paper, or just before it becomes translucent. Stack tortillas on top of one another while you continue to roll.

5. To cook, heat a heavy based frying pan to medium heat. When it is hot, add the tortillas one at a time, for around 30 seconds each side. They will bubble up and brown in parts. Don't leave them in the pan too long, as they can dry out and become crispy instead of pliable. As you cook, keep the stack of cooked tortillas covered with a clean tea towel, doubled over, to keep them warm and soft. When cool, they store well in the fridge for about a week when wrapped.

Mexicola!

So I promised my pal Whitney that I'd post about the bagels next, but I spent this morning tending to the garden and didn't realise until I'd finished that hey! It's pretty hot out there! And hey! It's 3 o'clock! Time for a Mexicola!


This is a drink my friend Meg described minutes ago as 'confusing' - and I think I know what she means, for it's sweet and cold and spicy all at the same time. But she hasn't tasted it yet! I'm drinking one right this minute, dear readers, and I can tell you that it is good. First you take your glass and rub the rim with a wedge of lime. Now, salt that baby. Take some tequila blanco and splash it in. Squeeze in some lime juice and add a little sugar syrup and a dash or two of tabasco. Throw in a few ice cubes and top with coca-cola. And that's it! Crazy, yes? I tell you what, it's been a long time since I've had coca-cola, but this cocktail is so refreshing. And tangy. And spicy. It's a total party-starter.

Mexicola
From Gourmet Traveller November 2010, recipe by Anton Forte of Shady Pines, Sydney

Makes 1

1/4 lime for rubbing, plus 30ml lime juice
45 ml tequila blanco
10 ml sugar syrup
2 dashes Tabasco
Coca-Cola to fill

1. Rub the rim of your glass with the lime wedge, reserve lime. Dip the glass rim in slat and shake off excess. Add tequila, lime juice, sugar syrup and Tabasco, then ice. Fill with Coca-Cola and, if you're feeling fancy, garnish with the reserved lime wedge and serve.

food lover's cleanse: days 5, 6 & 7 + ceviche

I've been foiled by the seasons! The distinct lack of summer weather here in Melbourne had made me think I could get through this cleanse with minimal changes to the menu, but the last few days have been really pretty hot; too hot for soup and turning on the oven. So I've made some substitutions in the last couple of days that fit within the broader guidelines for the cleanse but are more suitable for the summer months. One of these - salmon ceviche with ginger and apple - I've been meaning to blog about for a good while anyway, as it's really the bomb. But first, the daily round up!


Day 5 began with a surprisingly delicious breakfast of crisp rye crackers with yoghurt, chives, red onion topped with smoked salmon. Surprising, because low-fat yoghurt on a cracker spells D-I-E-T to me, but the fresh herbs and onion and the salty smoked salmon got me over the line and I'd happily eat this again. I skipped the grapefruit and orange salad with mint, as I just wasn't hungry enough. But I might squeeze it in one evening when I feel like something sweet. Lunch was leftover pan roasted fruit and vegetables from yesterday with a green salad on the side. I needed to get creative with dinner, as it felt too warm for soup, so I used the small porterhouse steak I'd bought to serve alongside the 5-spice beetroot soup to throw into a fresh and fragrant thai-style salad with cucumber, home-grown tomatoes, thai basil, coriander, red onion and lime & fish sauce dressing. I used this recipe for inspiration and took this to work the next day for lunch, too!


Day 6 began with a piece of wholegrain toast with marmalade and juicy summer nectarine, instead of oatmeal with almond milk, banana slices and walnuts. I'd been looking forward to that! But it was just too hot. Lunch was Thai beef salad again, with an afternoon snack of two medjool dates and a handful of hazelnuts. I got home (very!) late from work, but decided I absolutely must cook at least one dish from the plan; I might have been tired, but I wasn't disappointed! Pictured below is what I cooked up at around 11.30 pm last night: Itamar's Bulgar Pilaf, topped with a warm poached egg. This was another recipe from Yoram Ottolenghi - and another reason to buy one of his books, asap! The pilaf was sweet with onion, strips of red bell pepper and currants - and this sweetness was interrupted every few bites with the pop of pink peppercorns and whole coriander seeds. The poached egg on top rounded this out to make a perfect supper and a meal I'm looking forward to making again.


I began Day 7 with yogurt topped with fresh sliced strawberries, a tablespoon of maple syrup, some ground flaxseed (linseed) and a few toasted hazelnuts. Super yum! While I often eat yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, I never think to top it with nuts, seeds or a little something sweet to take it to the next level. The cleanse is really beginning to make me think about how all those little details can really elevate lift a simple dish to the level of luxury. Like in a day spa! Lunch was leftover pilaf from last night with a green salad. And for dinner this evening I made salmon ceviche instead of the salmon cakes, and skipped Molly's super-warming curried lentil soup that I was eating just last week when the temperature allowed.


Ceviche is of course diced raw fish or seafood that is not cooked with heat, but with the acidity of citrus juice! Magical, hey? In this case, diced fresh salmon is thrown together with cucumber, tomato, red onion, green apple, grated ginger, minced jalapeno, coriander and lemon and lime juices. Lots of ingredients, but so easy to prepare and super-refreshing! To scoop it up, I used some oven-baked tostadas made from organic corn tortillas and all together it was perfect. I've served this ceviche on tostadas as a starter for parties and as a light meal when you can't bear to turn the stove on. This recipe is adapted only a little from Deborah Schneider's great little book Amor Y Tacos, whose recipes really remind me of the more inventive food I encountered in Mexico and couldn't get enough of. It also has some wonderful cocktail recipes for parties and those hot summer nights when you aren't doing a food lover's cleanse.

Salmon Ceviche with Ginger, Apple and Cucumber
Adapted from Amor Y Tacos
Serves 1

100 gm fresh Atlantic salmon
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tbsp lime juice
pinch of salt
half a jalapeno pepper (or to taste), minced
a little knob of fresh ginger (around 5 gm, for reference), grated
1/2 a Lebanese cucumber, peeled and seeded, diced
1/2 medium tomato, cored and diced
1/4 of a green tart apple (such as Granny Smith), peeled, core removed and diced
a handful of coriander (cilantro), chopped

Corn tostadas, to serve


1. Mix diced salmon with lemon juice, lime juice, salt, jalapeno and ginger. Cover and refrigerate for 15 - 30 minutes. The fish will "cook" in the fruit juice and turn slightly opaque.

2. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve with tostadas for scooping.

frijoles negros, or everyday black beans

I think if you're going to eat something everyday - or quite often, it should be made from the kind of recipe that serves you well every time. I have a bunch of these recipes scrawled out on the back of envelopes and receipts poking out of books and stuck to the fridge; there's my version of Molly's banana bread, the flour/yeast/water ratios for Jim Lahey's no-knead bread and a splotched crinkly print-out of the recipe for classic zucchini slice. One of the other things I make every couple of weeks is a big pot of frijoles negros, or basic black beans soaked and simmered with a dried chipotle chile until inky and creamy and totally delicious. At a Mexican-themed BBQ I had last weekend where I served them alongside charcoal-grilled achiote chicken, pico de gallo, mango salsa, salmon, apple and ginger ceviche, corn tortillas and mint caramel flan, the recipe for black beans was the one people asked for.


But this is a recipe that doesn't exist on any of those bits of paper, actually. It's just a preparation I made up, liked and stuck to - a "recipe" that before now, I've never thought much about. I fell in love with the creamy, rich texture of black beans in Mexico and they've been on high rotation in my repertoire since I got my hands on a source for the dried beans back here in Melbourne. I just soak a couple of cupfuls of beans, then rinse and throw them into my cast iron pot, covered with plenty of cold water. I throw in a peeled garlic clove or two, a peeled whole onion and a dried chipotle chile, bring to the boil and then let the whole lot simmer away until it becomes a thick and dark magic brew that smells wholesome and smoky.

The beans can then be used for a million different things. You can serve them on nachos, or alongside sausages. You can use them, with salsa and queso fresco, to fill vegetarian tacos or empanadas. You can moosh them up, add some stock and serve with crema for a satisfying black bean soup. You could puree them into refried beans and serve as a dip with tostadas, alongside eggs for a traditional Mexican breakfast, or use a thick layer as an additional filling for Sunday morning hangover quesadillas. Or even better - and Aussies might have to trust me on this - you can serve them hot, spooned over the top of a plate of freshly cooked rice, garnished with coriander, chipotle crema, chunks of avocado, hot sauce and lime. It's my most favourite cheap, warming, filling comfort meal, but not something you hear much about down here in OZ.


While there's not exactly a recipe here for these babies, there are some things you should you know about cooking black beans that might help if you've never prepared them before:

1. Dried beans are better than canned. TRUE. I don't care what Jamie Oliver says - I can't afford imported canned black beans (at $5 a pop) and they're nowhere near as good as those you soak and simmer yourself. It may take some forethought, but it certainly doesn't take much time to soak beans while you sleep and to throw them in a pot to simmer for a few hours on a Saturday morning. Save dollars, food miles and packaging - and get compliments from everyone.

2.Good-quality, freshest dried beans are MUY IMPORTANTE, amigo. Black beans are a little hard to come by in Melbourne anyway, but those sold at Casa Iberica in Fitzroy are really worth the trip. Woolworths now sells black turtle beans under their 'Macro' label in the health food aisle; these are ok, but you just won't achieve the creaminess and flavour you're really after.

3. Don't throw salt into that water! At least not for the first hour or so. Word on the street is that this makes them tough as little stones (though I've heard contradictory theories too). I've always seasoned later and never had a problem with tough beans, so I'm sticking to this rule. Salt some after an hour or so of cooking and adjust as necessary when they're done.

4. Flavour as you like. I throw in a dried chipotle chile (also available at Casa Iberica or online here) to infuse the whole pot with a smoky, subtle heat that doesn't interfere too much with the different dishes I add my beans to. But throw in whatever you like; fresh bay leaves, ground coriander or a chunk of smoky bacon.

5. Skim that scum. Shortly after your beans come to the boil, a frothy scum often rises to the surface. You want to skim this off with a big spoon so that the texture and flavour of your beans and their liquid really sing. Once you turn down to simmer, check for more scum every so often and remove as necessary.

6. Add more water as needed and don't let the beans dry out. By the time the beans are tender and creamy, the water will have transformed into a thick black-purple sauce - you want to make sure there's enough of this. If you intend to puree or mash the beans, you may want a even little more liquid.

7. Taste! Cooking time depends on how long you soak and how fresh your beans are. These ones took just under two hours after an overnight soak, but there's only one way to find out if yours are done...

the chilli project, part I: productive nostalgia

One of the most memorable meals of my life was eaten at a pit stop during an overnight bus trip through the Sierra Madre in Mexico. In the early hours of some anonymous morning, we tumbled down the steep stairs of the coach and into the desert. I remember looking around with weary eyes and seeing nothing. But at the very same time it was everything; everything that cinema had conjured for me over the years – and suddenly I was standing right in the centre of it. In this moment, I was inside cinema.


Fellow travellers bought coca-cola in small glass bottles, rubbed their eyes and smoked cigarettes. Some of us ate. Beside the register a woman stood behind a metal drum that’d been fixed up into a kind of grill and beside it on the table were plates of pulled meat and chorizo, little containers of pico de gallo and salsa verde. There was a bowl of rice – grainy and tinged pink with roasted tomato – covered with an upturned sieve to keep bugs out. There was a plate of whole fried chillies of a kind I’d never seen and a pile of tortillas wrapped loosely in a dishcloth. We stood there and realised that sleep deprivation had devoured our paltry Spanish and the woman looked at us and knew, so she made us something to eat.

On the top of the drum she flipped tortillas in slow motion, while warming a couple of the chillies and when they were ready, she put spoonfuls of rice onto the centre of the tortillas and topped them with a chilli, pulling out the stem before wrapping the whole thing up and handing it over on a little Styrofoam plate. Too tired to care what it was (or so we thought) we sat down and bit into one of the most awesome things we’d ever encountered: a burrito filled with Mexican rice and chiles rellenos.


What I couldn’t have known standing there, hungry and almost too tired to eat, was that these were ancho poblano chillies that had been grilled whole over an open flame until the skin blistered and blackened. Once peeled, a little slit had been made in each so that the chilli could be stuffed with queso fresco – a fresh white cheese something between ricotta and haloumi. Once resealed, it had been dusted in flour and dipped into a batter lightened with beaten egg whites before being fried. The batter became this super-crispy shell encasing the meaty pepper that was sweet, but with a little kick and the whole thing became the house for the molten and slightly squeaky, salty cheese centre. I could go on, because Lord. It. Was. Good.

So of course I set about making these as soon as I got home, but I realised quickly that the ancho chilli is not something you can get here (unless you want it dried, in which case click here). I experimented with different kinds of peppers, some hot, some sweet, but it just wasn’t the same. So this year, I’m growing my own. Maybe you should too?

Sopa Azteca (Mexican Tortilla Soup)

Not a week goes by where we don’t talk about Mexico. Places we went to, people we met, food that we ate. Memories of that amazing country have been branded onto our hearts, and we long always to get back there.

The most beautiful dishes we ate there have been hard to recreate back in Melbourne for reasons involving both ingredients and equipment. One thing we are quite happy with though, is our version of Sopa de Tortilla, also known as the infinitely more exotic 'Sopa Azteca'. This soup is often served as the small first course of the comida corrida (the set lunch menu offered at restaurants all over Mexico) and there are about as many versions as there are restaurants. At its most basic, it is a rich and earthy chicken broth poured over fried strips of tortilla and anything from chunked avocado, to cubed cheese is added to garnish. We loved it so much that we eat it now in a bigger version as a main meal, like a kind of Mexican incarnation of those big Vietnamese noodle soups with the best of every version we encountered. It's the ultimate use of leftovers if you’ve had roast chicken for dinner the night before or if you’ve got a couple dry tortillas hanging about. But it is so good, it is totally worth making from scratch – and we often do.

Sopa Azteca
This will make 4 entrée-sized soups or 2 large bowls.

2 medium-sized ripe tomatoes
3 – 4 corn tortillas, cut into strips
1/3 cup light olive oil or vegetable oil
1 medium-sized brown onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 litre chicken stock, flavoured with clove, thyme and allspice
Salt and pepper
Chiles chipotles en adobo (1 chile for each serve)*
1 avocado
½ - 1 cup of shredded cooked chicken
½ cup roughly chopped coriander leaves
Fresh lime

Place tomatoes in a cast iron frying pan or grill pan on medium heat for 12 – 15 minutes until skin blackens and begins to split. The tomatoes should also have softened a little. Remove and when cool enough to handle, remove skins and puree in blender.

Heat oil in a frying pan until very hot. Add tortilla strips and fry, turning, until all strips are crispy and lightly golden. Remove from pan and drain on paper towel.

Tip remaining oil into a large saucepan (or stockpot) and add onion. Sauté over medium heat until onion is translucent. Add the garlic and then the tomato puree and fry for around 10 minutes to thicken and concentrate.

Add the chicken stock, bring to boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Cook covered for 30 minutes, then season to taste.

Divide tortilla strips, chicken, avocado, chicken and coriander into serving bowls. Add one chile per bowl. Ladle hot broth over the mixture and add lime juice to taste.

*Chiles chipotles en adobo are smoked Mexican jalapeños in special chile sauce. They are available canned from Casa Iberica in Fitzroy or online from U.S.A. Foods.