Blue Corn Tortillas: an Expensive Experiment

We were worried we wouldn't make it to Wellington last weekend, as wild weather forced Wellington airport to close temporarily. Fortunately, things were pretty much back to normal before we were scheduled to fly, although it was busier at the airport than expected. As usual, we stay at a serviced apartment diagonally across from road from the treasure trove known as Moore Wilson's. This time, a packet of organic blue masa caught my eye, and came back to Auckland with us along with a variety of raw milk cheeses, Mussel Inn feijoa cider, and a container of malt extract. (Oh yeah... we also bought all the duck liver mousse, made by brilliant little French restaurant Le Canard, that they had on hand.)

The ingredients listed for the blue masa was "organic blue corn, trace of lime". It turns out this did not mean the type of lime that looks somewhat like a green lemon, but rather referred to slaked lime, or an alkaline solution of calcium hydroxide. Upon further research, I discovered that the process of preparing corn in limewater is called nixtamalisation, and ancient civilisations have been doing this as long ago as 1200-1500 BC! This process not only improved the flavour and colour of the corn, but provided niacin, which unprocessed maize is deficient in. European settlers did not adopt the same process, leading to poor people in the southern US developing pellagra in the early 20th century.

To be honest, this flour from blue corn did not look so much blue as a kind of pale grey. I decided that I would make corn tortillas with it, using the recipe on the packet, and serve it with a vegetarian bean chilli. This is no stew for the poor, as I went and bought such exotic and expensive ingredients as dried ancho poblano chillies imported from Mexico, and the organic masa harina was pretty dear to begin with!

Blue masa, chipotle peppers and ancho poblano chillis, which cost me $11.50, $3.09 and $7.49 respectively.

The recipe went like this:

To make tortillas combine 500g of masa, 1 teaspoon of salt and 300ml of warm water to form a dough.
Roll the dough into equal sized balls and press each ball flat to about 4mm thickness. Cook tortillas on a pre heated frying pan for 30 seconds on each side then stack them on top of each other and wrap in a tea towel to stay warm.

It sounded pretty simple, but I had questions straight away. How big should each dough ball be, and how hot the pan?  Do you use oil? And 4mm sounded awfully thick! Recipes on packets generally turn out well though, I reasoned, as companies want you to keep buying the product, so I ploughed on ahead. I made a rather dry and hard lump, which looked very different from the description and pictures in Mexico in my Kitchen.

The dough was a bit hard even when I added more water. I ended up adding significantly more.

I tried flattening the dough balls between two sheets of baking paper, pressing with a saucepan on top of a chopping board. Because the dough was so hard though, it didn't really want to spread, and I had to flatten it a bit more with a rolling pin and before putting it on to cook. As you probably guessed, it was a failure. The heat did not transfer well to the dry lump, and the inside of the tortilla did not cook through, at least not in the short timeframe suggested.

First attempt at a blue corn tortilla did not turn out well.

I tried adding more water to make a softer dough, I played with the heat, and tried actually making a 4mm thick patty, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to give the result I was looking for. Although I heated some for as long as 5 minutes, the insides never seemed to cook properly. The most edible versions were those that I pressed thinner, but even they were not particularly inspiring. I only managed to make one tortilla that puffed up a little bit. A lot more practice required, methinks! And maybe with cheaper ingredients first.

Chilli sin carne, served with blue corn chips.

My chilli fared much better, but also lacked a depth of flavour. Perhaps it will improve overnight, as the recipe suggested that it would. [Added 10 July 2013: It's amazing but true. This went from something slightly anaemic to a full-bodied, sophisticated chilli after a week.] I managed to rescue my tortillas by chopping them up into triangles, and baking them in the oven until there were no more wet dough innards. Although they were now edible, they were definitely more hard than crisp. I shall have to trawl the internet for tips and tricks, before attempting to make corn tortillas again.

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things. This month it is hosted by Chandler from The Chef With Red Shoes.