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.
AMENIA — The first day of school on Thursday, Sept. 4, at Webutuck Elementary School went smoothly, with teachers enthusiastically greeting the eager young students disembarking from buses. Excitement was measurable, with only a few tears from parents, but school began anyway.
Ready for her first day of school on Thursday, Sept. 4, at Webutuck Elementary School, Liliana Cawley, 7, would soon join her second grade class, but first she posed for a photo to mark the occasion.Photo by Leila Hawken
Millerton Police Chief Joseph Olenik shows off the new gear. Brand new police cruisers arrived last week.
MILLERTON — The Millerton Police Department has received two new patrol cars to replace vehicles destroyed in the February 2025 fire at the Village Water and Highway Department.
The new Ford Interceptors are custom-built for law enforcement. “They’re more rugged than a Ford Explorer,” said Millerton Police Chief Joseph Olenik, noting the all-wheel drive, heavy-duty suspension and larger tires and engine. “They call it the ‘Police Package.’”
Olenik worked with The Cruiser’s Division in Mamaroneck, New York, to design the vehicles.
“We really want to thank the Pine Plains Police Department for their tremendous support,” Olenik said. After the fire, “they were the first ones to come forward and offer help.”
The new police cruisers are outfitted with lights with automatically adjusting brightness to best perform in ambient conditions.Photo by Aly Morrissey
Since February, Millerton officers have been borrowing a patrol car from Pine Plains. With the new vehicles now in service, Olenik said he plans to thank Pine Plains officers by treating them to dinner at Four Brothers in Amenia and having their car detailed
The main entrance to Kent Hollow Mine at 341 South Amenia Road in Amenia.
AMENIA — Amenia residents and a Wassaic business have filed suit against the Town Board and Kent Hollow Inc., alleging a settlement between the town and the mine amounts to illegal contract zoning that allows the circumvention of environmental review.
Petitioners Laurence Levin, Theodore Schiffman and Clark Hill LLC filed the suit on Aug. 22. Town officials were served with documents for the case last week and took first steps in organizing a response to the suit at the Town Board meeting on Thursday, Sept. 4.
The lawsuit is the latest in a multi-year long legal battle surrounding the mine on South Amenia Road. After Kent Hollow Inc. — a subsidiary of Bethel, Connecticut, based homebuilder Steiner Inc. — applied for a state mining permit in 2017, the Amenia code enforcement officer issued the business a notice of violation.
At the time, Kent Hollow Inc. did not possess a special permit to conduct mining operations as required by Amenia zoning code, and the property did not reside in the Special Mining Overlay district established as part of rezoning efforts coinciding with the 2007 adoption of the town’s comprehensive plan.
Kent Hollow Inc. appealed the violation, claiming the use of the property as a mine predates amendments to town and state regulations. The Zoning Board of Appeals denied the appeal citing insufficient evidence in 2019. That spurred Kent Hollow to file two lawsuits — one in the New York State Supreme Court and a federal civil rights lawsuit — challenging the town’s order.
In July 2025, those lawsuits were brought to a close when the Town Board voted at a special meeting to accept a settlement agreement allowing Kent Hollow to continue mining operations under limited hours and quantities.
The most recent suit alleges the 2025 settlement amounts to contract zoning that allows Kent Hollow Inc. to skirt environmental review and the scrutiny of the permitting and rezoning process. Court documents allege Kent Hollow did not adequately prove a continuous, legal nonconforming use.
Supporting the argument, petitioners have submitted the court documents and decision from the 2019 New York Supreme Court case against the town Zoning Board of Appeals, and the documents from the preceding ZBA appeals process including receipts and tax returns from Kent Hollow Inc. purporting to establish the nonconforming use.
Kent Hollow Inc. formed as a subsidiary of housing developer Steiner Inc. and purchased the property in 1971, according to state and county real estate records.
Millerton News reporting from 1971 Amenia planning board meetings detail Kent Hollow’s pursuit of a four-section, 40-unit apartment complex on the property.
The News reported Kent Hollow was granted tentative approval on July 6, 1971, to build eight units on the site with the expectation that more would be built later.
The additional units never came to fruition and Kent Hollow apparently abandoned the housing project, opting to use the property as a gravel mine.
Attorneys for the Town of Amenia or Kent Hollow Inc. have not filed responses to the lawsuit as of press time.
AMENIA — While the courage and perseverance of Revolutionary era patriots is well understood and celebrated, the stories of the fate of British loyalists in New York are not as clear.
Seen as the initial event in observance of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Amenia Historical Society will present a talk titled, “The Plight of a Loyalist in Revolutionary New York,” examining the journal of Cadwallader Colden, Jr., spanning the period of 1777-1779. The speaker will be noted author, genealogist and historian Jay Campbell.
The talk is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m. at the Smithfield Presbyterian Church in Amenia. The handicapped-accessible church is located at 656 Smithfield Valley Road. Refreshments will be served.
Colden was the son of a New York Lieutenant Governor. He was a surveyor, farmer and mercantilist, serving as a judge in Ulster County. His fortunes changed dramatically with the dawn of the Revolutionary War when he remained loyal to the British Crown. His arrest came in 1776, just before the start of his journal.
Campbell is a historian specializing in Hudson Valley history, and the regional stories of Revolutionary era families.