The key to a perfect tortilla: steaming

In COVID quarantine, I have devoted my time to learning how to bake, and decided to try (one more time) to successfully make tortillas by hand.
I learned two important things: One is that there is really no point in trying to make flour tortillas. The factory-made ones that you buy at the grocery store are actually pretty good; and making flour tortillas at home is pretty difficult. It’s like bolognese sauce; what they sell at the store is as good as or better than anything I’m going to make.
Corn tortillas are another matter. Because corn flour has no gluten, it’s a much simpler process — and of course if you have gluten sensitivity, this is a perfect gluten-free food transport system.
An incentive to make these by hand is that they are easy and truly superior to the fairly rubbery and tasteless corn tortillas sold at even very good stores.
However, I’ve tried corn tortillas in the past and the end result was too dense and too hard. Which leads to the other important lesson I learned this year, from an internet recipe at https://thecafesucrefarine.com/best-ever-homemade-flour-tortillas.
It was recommended to me by Ken Dempsey, one of the talented PT specialists at Geer in North Canaan. This flour tortilla recipe has become a dinnertime staple for his family.
Even though I still think it’s easier to buy than make flour tortillas, this recipe taught me the Essential Trick for Making Corn Tortillas: You must steam them immediately after you cook them.
Where to find
masa harina
The only thing that is hard about making corn tortillas is that you have to buy special corn flour, which is called masa. You can’t substitute corn meal or polenta; this flour is specially treated so it’s smoother and less grainy.
Masa harina is very easy to find. You can get it at Tienda Mi Esquina, the new shop in Amenia, N.Y., at 3294 Route 343 (next door to the post office, at the intersection where there is also a bank and the Four Brothers restaurant). You can also usually find it at large grocery stores such as Freshtown, which is also in Amenia.
If you don’t have a bag of masa harina in the house, then, yes, you will have to leave the house to go buy it. But even with, say, a 40-minute round trip to the store it’s still faster to make corn tortillas (about 45 minutes total) than it is to make flour tortillas, which take two or three hours (because they are made with flour, which has gluten, and the gluten has to rest before you can roll it).
The recipe
The brand I buy is Maseca, and the bag specifies that you can use it to make tortillas. There are a couple other options, including one from Bob’s Red Mill.
But an added benefit of the Maseca brand, for me, was that it has a tortilla recipe on the package. It’s beautifully simple: Combine 2 cups of masa harina with 1 1/2 cups of warm water. If it seems dry, add a little more water, a teaspoon at a time.
Knead it for about 2 minutes in your mixing bowl. It’s a soft dough, and easy to knead. If you don’t know how to knead, you’re just basically pressing it together with the heel of your hand again and again until it comes together into a nice smooth dough, like Play Dough.
It’s very simple; don’t overthink it. Again, masa harina is much more forgiving than white flour.
After you mix the dough, cover it with a damp cloth or some plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out.
Heat a cast iron skillet over a medium high flame; as with pancakes, you’ll want to adjust the flame as you go along.
Rolling
and steaming
This recipe makes about 20 tortillas. Before you start to roll them out, cut out 22 squares of parchment paper (waxed paper is fine if that’s all you have) that are about 6 or 8 inches square. This might seem wasteful or fussy but trust me on this one: It will make rolling out the tortillas very easy.
Here’s another thing that might sound fussy but will make a big difference. This is the trick I learned from Cafe Sucre Farine. Before you start to cook your tortillas, get a small Dutch oven or other covered ceramic vessel. You can even use a large bowl, with a plate on top.
As you take your tortillas off the skillet, drop them in your pot/bowl and cover it immediately. This will steam the cooked tortillas and make them pliant and delicious. Do not skip this step.
Back to the recipe: After you’ve made your dough, separate it into 20 balls that are about the size of a golf ball. What I found easiest was to roll the dough out into a long log, wrapped in plastic, and then I divided the dough in half and in half and in half and …
Keep the dough balls covered; if they get dry and start to break when you handle them, just put a little water on your hands as you work.
Roll each ball out to about a 1/8 inch thick circle, between two squares of parchment. Leave the circles between the parchment, so they stack nicely and don’t dry out.
Cook them one at a time on your hot skillet. I find it helps if you put a tiny bit of canola oil in the skillet, but you don’t have to.
Cook each side for about 45 seconds; if your flame is hot enough, you should get brown spots.
Your tortillas will taste best right after you cook them. If you don’t eat them the same day you make them, wrap two or three in some plastic wrap and then put each of your packets of wrapped tortillas in a zippered freezer bag.
To reheat them, wrap them in foil and put them in a 275 degree oven for about 10 minutes.
Mariah Orms and her horse Shanaclough Quality Clover tore through the water jumps.
AMENIA — Competitors and spectators endured through high heat, rain and a smoky haze for the 40th annual Millbrook Horse Trials at Coole Park.
Four hours of dressage on Thursday, July 24, opened up the competition that puts riders and their horses through a triathlon of equestrian sports. Cross country jumping began on Friday, followed by stadium jumping on Saturday.
Over the last 40 years, the Millbrook Horse Trials has built a reputation that draws athletes and visitors from great distances. Numbering among the competitors were riders at the highest level of the sport of evening, including Olympian Boyd Martin. Martin finished the weekend with a win in the advanced division after a clean run around the showjumping ring on the horse Miss LuLu Herself on Sunday.
That was during a light drizzle that hung in the air over the event grounds on Amenia-Bangall Road. The weekend started with high heat on Thursday and Friday and towering thunder clouds threatening rain for much of Friday afternoon. Partly cloudy skies made way for a smoky haze on Saturday that triggered an air quality alert for the region.
Volunteer parking monitor Alexander King didn’t let the erratic weather keep him down, and he said he didn’t see a drop in numbers either. “Yesterday we probably had, give or take, 300 to 400 people,” he said on Sunday, the final day of the competition.
King travelled from Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife to attend the event.
AMENIA — With the goal of engaging with the Planning Board by describing potential short and long-term changes to the Silo Ridge Master Plan of Development, representatives of Silo Ridge led a workshop session at the regular meeting of the Planning Board on Wednesday, July 23.
An application currently under consideration and public hearing that will continue at the Planning Board’s Aug. 13 meeting would eliminate planning for 13 townhouse units, substituting 10 condominium units located on a single lot within the Silo Ridge development. The workshop session reviewed conceptual drawings showing potential future units and other amenities to enhance the future whole.
“We are seeking to work with the town in a constructive way,” said Silo Ridge President Saul Scherl as the workshop began. His comment echoed a similar statement offered at a September, 2024, Planning Board meeting at which administrative reorganization of Silo Ridge was announced. At that meeting, Scherl had spoken of working together with town officials to achieve goals.
Before introducing Patrick O’Leary, Silo Ridge consultant, to review the master plan, Scherl invited the Planning Board to arrange a visit and tour of the Silo Ridge community in the coming weeks. After the tour, Silo Ridge would continue with a series of workshop sessions with the board.
“We are seeking a method for agreeing to a system of planning units to avoid the need to return for plan modification approvals,” O’Leary explained.
Specificity was seen as key to progressing toward such an approval system in the view of Planning Board member Ken Topolsky.
Topolsky thanked the Silo Ridge administration for last winter’s opening of the skating rink to the community on selected days, for the new Silo Bakery recently opened in the town center, and the active engagement of Silo Ridge residents in the town’s efforts toward community development planning.
“These efforts are not going unnoticed,” Topolsky said.
Planning Board member James Walsh was seeking more representation of aesthetics in the conceptualized drawings, more horizontal views rather than overheads. O’Leary replied that such details would be presented following the workshops.
“We’re not expanding; we’re just moving pieces around,” O’Leary said in response to Walsh’s inquiry about provision for workforce housing. He added that there are no plans to house workers internally on site at Silo Ridge.