#2352 in which I made corn tortillas

A couple of months ago I made a recipe for enchilada soup that called for masa harina as a thickener. I know I could have found something else to use as a thickening agent, I'm sure, but I went ahead and bought the two and a half pound bag of masa harina. Of course, I only needed like a quarter cup for the recipe, so I have a whole bunch of masa left. What am I supposed to do with all that masa? The answer is to make tortillas, of course.

Are you wondering what masa harina is? It is corn flour. It is what is used to make corn tortillas. There are other things that can be made with masa as well, of course, but corn tortillas are the easiest. They only require three ingredients: masa harina, salt, and hot water. Mix it all together and form a ball. I let the dough ball rest for an hour, then I was ready for business.

I do not have a tortilla press, so I used my rolling pin. I put the dough between a couple of sheets of parchment paper and attempted to form the dough into circles.

I wasn't very good at it. They came out kinda square or rectangular-ish. One of them resembled a bear.

Can you see the ears? LOL

This was the closest I came to a circle.

As you can see, I cooked them in my cast iron skillet. It was super hot and the tortillas cooked quickly. I put them in a damp towel to keep them all tender and warm.

I don't remember how many I made, maybe a dozen or so. I cut some of them up into vaguely chip-like shapes and baked them. They didn't get crispy, but they tasted okay when I dipped them in salsa. Later in the evening I had one as a taco. It was kind of awkward to hold onto and it was extremely filling. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. I have some left, so I'll try to make more chips tomorrow.

Overall, I don't know if I would call my experiment a complete Pinterest win, but it's not a complete fail either. It was kind of fun to try something different.

Stay safe, friends!