Thursday, July 1, 2010

Cooking Lesson!

Today I went over to my friend Cris' house for a cooking lesson. Her name is really Crisilda -isn't that a pretty name? Cris' parents immigrated to Texas from Mexico and raised a family of 8 children near San Antonio.

Cris is a legend in our church for her homemade burritos, tamales, and fajitas. She also makes killer breakfast burritos! I begged Cris to show me how to make tortillas after I got a tortilla press for Christmas. And today was the day! Yay!

Now, Cris cooks like I do, rarely measuring out ingredients, just eyeballing it until she gets it right. I'm going to have to practice a LOT to get as good as she is, though. As soon as I perfect a recipe, I'll share it with you.

But I'll leave you with a few cool tips she shared with me.

First, don't try to make flour tortillas in a tortilla press. They need to be rolled out. When rolling them, roll out away from you only. Turn the tortilla a quarter turn and roll again. Keep turning and rolling until you have a circular shape.


Cris could whip these babies out in no time! It took me longer and mine weren't as pretty as hers. But she assured me that practice makes perfect, so I'll be working on that skill often!

When shaping dough balls to be rolled out for flour tortillas, form a domed shape instead of a round ball. Like this.

It reminded me of a mushroom! Then turn the dome shape over to roll out. This prevents the edges of the tortilla from splitting and cracking. Cool tip, huh?

A tip for using a tortilla press is to place a a bread bag (cut open and flattened) on the press. Wet it with a little water so the corn dough doesn't stick. Then peel the plastic off the tortilla after your press them. Perfect every time!


I learned so much from Cris and had a ton of fun cooking with her. I'm really excited to try making these on my own!

3 comments:

  1. That would have been a fabulous afternoon ... :)

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  2. I would have loved to had that cooking lesson.
    I'm sure you'll be a pro before you know it.

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