Homemade Flour Tortillas Without A Press

Sometimes I think I make things harder for myself. I mean, there was leftover chicken that I could've just packed up in my daughter's lunch box, but noooo. I had the idea that I wanted to make her tortilla chicken pizzas. Easy enough right? I go to the pantry and there are no tortillas. What?! I swear I just bought some. I could've gone to the store, but I had the ingredients to make some. Therefore, I decided that tonight would be the night to give tortilla making a shot.

So, I went on the hunt to find a tortilla recipe and video. I found the video below that walked me through the process of tortilla making. The only downside to these instructions was that he used a tortilla press, which I don't have. Plus, I wasn't about to buy one in the middle of the night for something I may never attempt to make again.

I know all you experienced tortilla makers are probably laughing at me right now, but I just wasn't exposed to this stuff growing up in Hawaii. I mean, I'm Asian okay. Ask me how to make rice and I'm good. Anyway, here is the video I used to help me along.

 

 

 

Oh, I forgot to mention, you know that dough blender he uses in his video to cut the lard into the flour? Yeah, I used my rice paddle because I don't have one of those either. Seemed to work fine for me :-)

 

On with the show. I didn't have plain lard, so I substituted it with butter Crisco. This gave the tortillas a slight buttery flavor. Since I didn't have the press, I took out my brand new Silpat mat that I bought at Onekingslane.com and used as my base to roll out the tortilla. BTW- I LOVE my new Silpat mat. I don't know why I didn't buy one of these sooner and will be buying more.

 

Small ball of dough on Silpat mat.
I only dusted the top with a little flour before rolling it out with a regular rolling pin.

Rolled out till about 7in in diameter. **Try to get it as thin as possible**
If you use a Silpat mat, the tortilla will easily peel right off.

Placed on dry Teflon pan until it puffed up and browned.

Flipped it over.



Finished tortillas.
Besides the two I used for lunch boxes, the rest were devoured before I even stored them.



 







Chef John's Recipe from Food Wishes Blog:

8 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 3/4 cup), more as needed

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup hot water (about 105 degrees F.)

 

 

After I made these, I went back on Youtube and found this funny video for another alternative way to shape tortillas without a press. I couldn't get this one to download, but I included the link.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esrvMS5tVHY