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Fresh-Milled Corn and Wheat Sourdough Tortillas
A few months ago, I was eating a chicken-caesar wrap while driving, and I had to pull over to check that I wasn’t eating the paper wrapper. Nope. It was just a tortilla that felt and tasted like paper in my mouth.
The tortillas from this recipe are the opposite of that. They’re a tribute to flavor and a denunciation of the barely edible tortillas I’ve come to expect in most settings.
I’ve always loved the texture of good flour tortillas and the flavor of corn tortillas, so I saw this recipe as an opportunity to create a super tortilla with the best of wheat and corn. Made from a mixture of fresh-milled organic yellow dent corn and organic all purpose flour, these tortillas are so delicious.
Adding the element of fermentation with sourdough starter isn’t necessary to make these tortillas, but I encourage you to try it. Evidence suggests that fermentation enhances the digestibility of the grains and the bioavailability of nutrients, particularly minerals. Moreover, if you stretch the fermentation longer and longer, you will start to taste some additional delicious flavors.
Corn Type, Milling and Ratios
I made this recipe multiple times, using yellow dent corn and niles red flint corn, and at some point I plan to try it with bloody butcher corn. I found rolling the dough with a rolling pin on a dry, clean counter to be easy with the yellow dent corn version. The niles red flint corn version needed to be rolled between two pieces of plastic wrap to help prevent sticking and tearing. If you have a tortilla press or heavy flat-based pan, you can use that instead to press your dough into the round shape of a tortilla.
You can mill the corn in one pass that is a tiny bit coarser than where you would mill wheat berries (stones not knocking), or twice at different settings: coarse and then as fine as wheat berries (stones knocking).
I chose a 50:50 mix of corn and wheat, but infinite ratios are possible. However, if you choose whole grain wheat and whole meal corn, the resulting tortilla may be almost too delicate to form burritos or soft tacos. It does work well for quesadillas, though, and it tastes fantastic. I have made a couple of yummy white sonora wheat and niles red corn batches, with about 10-15g more water.
If you want an all-corn tortilla, you should use nixtamalized corn so that your dough can come together nicely. Nixtamalization is an ancient Mesoamerican process of soaking and cooking corn in an alkaline solution and removing the hulls. It changes the nutrient composition of the corn (important only if your diet is primarily corn), and makes the resulting cornmeal manageable for dough creation. Un-nixtamalized corn flour alone doesn’t seem to adhere to itself enough to make tortillas.
Frying Technique and Equipment
I usually fry the tortillas in a cast iron pan, but I’ve also used a nonstick pan with no problem. With my first few batches, I felt challenged by rolling and frying simultaneously, but by batch four, I was rolling delicate whole wheat and corn tortillas with two frying pans on the stove at the same time, and could make eight tortillas in no time at all. I suggest you roll out your second tortilla while the first one is frying and so on. Beware that the pan temperature will increase if you pause for any extended amount of time.
No starter? No home mill?
If you skip the sourdough starter, you will need 10-20g more water.
If you don’t have a home mill, you can use fine cornmeal or masa harina.
In either of these scenarios, add water slowly and aim for a kneadable hydration (no dry bits, not sticking to your fingers). Be sure to still let the dough rest and hydrate at least 30 minutes before rolling.
Home Milled Corn and Wheat Sourdough Tortillas
Fresh-milled corn has spectacular flavor, and when combined with the smooth texture of organic all purpose flour and fermented with sourdough starter, you get a super tortilla. This recipe gives you tortillas with amazing flavor, texture and digestibility.
Ingredients
Instructions
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Fresh-Milled Corn and Wheat Sourdough Tortillas