Corn tortillas: two ingredients and a flour with no substitute
A real Mexican tortilla has two ingredients: masa harina and water. There is no fat and no yeast, and salt is optional — yet it is pliable and flexible, thanks to what the corn has been through. Masa harina is not ordinary cornmeal: the grain is cooked in limewater (nixtamalisation), which changes the structure of its starch and proteins so that the ground flour forms a cohesive dough. Ordinary cornmeal or polenta simply crumbles.
Your own work in that: 37 min.
- Dough 6 min
- Resting 15 min
- Balls 6 min
- Pressing and cooking 25 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMix and knead
Put the masa harina and salt in a bowl, pour in the hot water and stir with a spoon until it has cooled enough to handle. Knead by hand 2 minutes — about 6 minutes including the mixing. The dough should be as soft as modelling clay and not stick to your hands — if it sticks, add a spoon of masa harina; if it cracks, a spoon of water.
Ingredients: 250 g masa harina · 320 ml water · ½ tsp salt
TipThe test: squeeze a ball in your palm. If the edges <b>crack like dry clay</b>, the dough is too dry. Properly hydrated dough squashes smoothly, with no cracks.
Soft as clay, edges that don't crackRest it a quarter of an hour
Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave 15 minutes. The flour hydrates fully and the dough becomes noticeably more pliable. This stage decides whether the tortillas will tear when pressed.
Roll the balls
Divide into 12 balls of about 45 g and keep them under a damp cloth. A ball left uncovered dries within minutes and presses out with cracked edges nothing can repair.
Twelve balls, all under the clothPress between plastic
Cut a freezer bag into two sheets. Put a ball between them and press with a tortilla press or the base of a heavy pan, pushing evenly, to 2 mm thick. The plastic is essential: without it the dough sticks to the press. It is easiest to press the next tortilla while the previous one cooks.
TipPlace the ball <b>slightly towards the hinge</b> of the press, not exactly in the middle — the dough spreads more towards the handle. If the tortilla comes out thicker on one side, turn it 180° in the plastic and press again.
Two millimetres, between two sheets of plasticCook and count three times
Heat a dry pan hard. Lay the tortilla on and cook 15 seconds, turn and cook 60 seconds, turn again and cook 30 seconds. On the third turn it should puff up like a balloon — the sign that the layers have separated and the dough is cooked. One tortilla takes just under 2 minutes, all twelve about 20–25 minutes.
Ingredients: 250 g masa harina · 320 ml water · ½ tsp salt
TipNot puffing? Press it gently with a cloth where you see fewest bubbles. Steam gathers underneath and the tortilla lifts by itself.
Fifteen, sixty, thirty secondsKeep them in a cloth
Put each finished tortilla straight into a cloth-lined basket and cover. Steam from the hot stack softens them and keeps them flexible. Uncovered they quickly stiffen and crack when rolled. After the last one is cooked, wait about 3 more minutes before filling.
Pan to cloth, immediately
Before you start
Where to buy masa harina
In Latin American shops and larger supermarkets, usually under the Maseca brand. Do not substitute cornmeal, cornflour or polenta — none of them is nixtamalised and the dough will crumble.
What to make
Tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas. Cut into triangles and fried they give totopos, home-made corn chips — better than bought ones.
Reheating
20 seconds a side in a dry pan, or the whole stack wrapped in a damp cloth for 60 seconds in the microwave. Steam is the key: reheated dry, a tortilla cracks.
The colour of the corn
Masa harina comes yellow, white and blue. They differ only in the variety of corn and taste slightly different — the technique and proportions are identical.
