Flour Tortillas

I'm a bad person, I know, because I like flour tortillas better than corn ones. There are definitely dishes in which corn tortillas work better (enchiladas, for example), but I just have an affinity for flour. It probably has to do with the big family meals we ate when I was a kid. My abuelita would make huge meals of pork tacos and fideos and tostadas and refried beans. We always used flour tortillas, albeit store-bought, so that probably set the standard for me.

Then, when I was in fifth and sixth grade, my dad worked for Michelin, and they sent him (and by extension the whole family) to France, where we lived for a year and half. It would have been cool if I'd been a little older and a lot less sheltered, but there were some good things about it, for sure. But a major disadvantage was that you couldn't get Mexican food anywhere. So my mom would make do with what we could find, but she ended up making her own flour tortillas, and they were delicious, so much better than store-bought. I'd never tried to make my own until just a couple of weeks ago, but they're so easy that I've been making them all the time. There's really nothing simpler or better than fresh flour tortillas. Check this shit out.


I got this recipe from Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican, but you aren't gonna find too much variation in flour tortilla recipes.

Here's what you'll need:
3/4 pound all-purpose flour
5 Tbsp lard
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup very warm water

You can use vegetable shortening instead of lard if you want, but I think lard gives the tortillas a better flavor. Of course, if you're vegetarian or vegan you'll tell me to go fuck myself, and that's totally understandable and I would die for your right to be able to say that to me.

Put the flour and lard in a bowl.

Mix 'em up with your hands until the lard is fully incorporated

Cool. Now mix the water and salt together, add most of it to the flour (you want to keep some of it back in case you have a denser flour). Mix it up. You want a dough that comes together but isn't sopping wet, like a drier bread dough, really, since we're essentially just making a simple flatbread.

Sprinkle a little flour on your work surface and knead the dough until it really comes together. You want it to be a little firmer than a bread dough. Shouldn't take more than a minute or so.

Here's what you'll end up with:

Split this dough ball into twelve smaller dough balls and put them on a plate.

Now let them rest for a half an hour. Then fire up your skillet on medium high. You want to cook them fast.

Take one of the balls, roll it out to a diameter of about six inches. Flop it on the skillet. Cook one side until it starts to bubble, then flip it and cook for another twenty seconds or so. Repeat with the other eleven tortillas.

Hell yes. Store them inside a towel to keep them warm. Eat them as soon as humanly possible.