Home is where the tortillas are

As a participant in the Taking Route "Global Life" series, I mentioned our wonderful homemade tortillas (first appearing in this blog about 4 years ago). Due to requests from other sad Mexican-food lovers with a tortilla-shaped hole in their hearts, I am posting the recipe here. Buen provecho!

Ingredients:
2+ cups flour
1 Tbsp shortening*
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup water

* I use shortening (Crisco) as it is available here. You could instead use lard, or experiment with other fats.

Instructions:
1. Preheat griddle or metal pan at medium heat. A nice hot (preheated) pan makes a nicer tortilla.

2. Cut shortening into the flour. Add salt and baking powder and mix. Add water and mix well. I use a hand mixer with dough hooks (sounds fancy but it's not!). Once mixture comes together, mix with electric mixer for 3 more minutes, or by hand for ~6 min. Dough is sticky - if mixing by hand you may need to add flour (which is actually nice for the dough being less sticky, but makes it harder to roll thin later).

3. Let dough rest on a well-floured surface for a few minutes (there is always something else in the kitchen that needs doing, right?).

4. Break dough into Ping-Pong(ish) sized balls and set aside on the well-floured surface.

5. To shape the tortilla, flatten a dough ball and then roll it with a rolling pin or glass bottle. It is really essential to be generous with the flour dusting here!

6. Place tortilla on hot pan. Small and large bubbles will form within a minute or so. Flip tortilla to just brown the other side.

7. Remove tortilla from heat and place in a stack in a clean towel. If tortillas aren't eaten within a few hours, they store well in a bag (preferably in the fridge, if you have space and power and all that).