Cooking runs in my family. It is rare that we have anything store bought at a family get- together. Holidays are for showcasing your best, your most decadent recipes. My aunt and cousins whip out loaves of bread in their spare time; my mother has a personal challenge of making the hottest salsa that no one can eat but they try. My grandma used to make the best chocolate pie and my grandpa could grill anything to perfection. Cooking is where the expectations are high and failure is not an option.
December is for tamales and my mother is very particular about how they are made. The ratio of pork to beef is exact. The masa is purchased at Food City in south Tucson and the red chile is always Santa Cruz brand. Lard is a must and is usually purchased at the meat market on the corner. Each tamale should have one green olive and a slice of pickled jalapeno. (There’s a yearly disagreement on these terms and many are made without the jalapeno.)
Throughout the season, when my mom unwraps a tamale she knows without a doubt who made the tamale. If it’s huge, it was Aunt Denise. If the tamale is lacking in masa and just way too skinny, we all know it was Martha. If it lacks a jalapeno, it was my grandma or possibly Mary. If it has more than one olive, it was surely me.
My mom strives to perfect every dish. I’ve never really tried. So a couple of months ago I declared that Sundays are for tortillas. I started scanning the internet for recipes. I landed on a TikTok account that featured a Mexican grandma who made all the classic recipes, including tortillas. I set out on a mission.
The first batch was a disaster. There wasn’t a round one in the bunch. They were too thin in the middle and thick around the edges. Since it took me over an hour to roll out and cook them I couldn’t bear to throw them out, so I bagged them and put them in the refrigerator. The following Sunday I got a little closer but still they resembled squares, not circles. They were edible but still lacked the stretch that I longed for. I added them to the pile in the refrigerator.
I went back to the internet. I watched videos of women in Mexico using homemade wooden tortilla presses making perfectly round tortillas.
I consulted with Zach and asked if he could make me one of these presses. His face said “No” so I ordered one from Amazon. My new cast iron tortilla press came within the week and I was back in business that next Sunday. I made a few tweaks to my recipe, and some added rest time to the dough. I rolled and pressed.
Making tortillas is kind of stressful. After you roll and press you have to cook and flip. The cast iron griddle, called a comal, has to be perfectly hot but not so hot that it burns the tortillas. You have to move fast. You have to keep the tortilla balls covered so they don’t dry out. You can’t overwork the dough.
This last batch was almost perfect. Thanks to the press they were mostly circular. They were also the perfect amount of stretchy. If you know anything about tortillas, a stretchy tortilla rolls better, which makes for a better burrito (says Zach). These tortillas stayed on the counter.
This past Sunday I was out of lard and I took a break, satisfied that I had broken the tortilla code. I am not yet a master but I am confident that I am on my way.
The chickens have received many bad tortillas in the past month. They have stopped laying; I don’t blame them. This Christmas instead of cookies everyone on my list is getting tortillas. The chickens don’t trust me anymore.
Cassina Farley can be contacted at cassinaandzachfarley@msn.com