Tortillas part two

I’m giving you some options for how to get the best tortillas you can, depending on how much time you have. I’ll start with the “purest” option, teaching you how to make your own tortillas, and then I’ll share some ideas for how to get decent tortillas on those occasions when you don’t have the time to cook them from scratch. I’m giving you some options for how to get the best tortillas you can, depending on how much time you have. I’ll start with the “purest” option, teaching you how to make your own tortillas, and then I’ll share some ideas for how to get decent tortillas on those occasions when you don’t have the time to cook them from scratch.
Make tortillas from fresh masa
If you live in a community with a tortillería or a Mexican restaurant where they make fresh tortillas, they probably have fresh masa that they will sell to you. In San Francisco’s Mission District, a tortillería called La Palma sells fresh masa, which they scoop into a plastic bag, for about a dollar per pound. I usually buy 2 to 3 pounds at a time. You want to use up fresh masa within a day of buying it, or it will begin to ferment and will make your tortillas taste sour. Some people suggest freezing fresh masa, but I don’t generally advise doing that because the tortillas made from thawed masa can be heavy. However, if you have extra masa, a solution is simply to make more tortillas than you need and freeze the ones you don’t eat. Stack the cool tortillas, loosely wrap them in plastic, and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. As soon as the tortillas have begun to freeze, pry them apart, restack them in a sealed container, and store in the freezer for up to 1 month. When you are ready to use them, thaw each tortilla slightly before reheating it on a comal or in a skillet. These reheated tortillas will taste remarkably close to fresh ones because the iciness they assume from being frozen helps offset the moisture that’s lost as they cool down after reheating.
Make tortillas from masa harina
If you don’t have access to a tortillería or any place selling fresh masa, you can still make good tortillas by hand using masa harina. Sold in bags or in bulk, masa harina looks like cornmeal but is actually dried-out masa, which you reconstitute by adding water until it has the consistency of Play-Doh. Maseca used to be the go-to brand, and it’s still for sale at most conventional grocery stores. But it’s a big company that doesn’t use exclusively organic corn, and these days it’s easy to find superior-quality, non-GMO, organic masa harina that tastes much better. (Bob’s Red Mill makes one.) While tortillas made from masa harina won’t be quite as tender and delectable as ones made from fresh masa, any fresh hot tortilla is going to taste amazing, especially to people who aren’t used to this luxury. I encourage everyone to make their own tortillas from scratch, even if it is from masa harina.