Spring Water Masa Tortillas

Stack the deck in your favor.

Time: 4 or 5 hours to clear the lime water; overnight to soak the corn; 5 ½ hours to cook the hominy; 1 hour to grind the masa and make the tortillas

We're not saying this was an easy recipe to develop. On the contrary. But the number of hours we invested should take most of the guesswork out of the equation for you. You'll need to pay attention, though. As is true of any dough, preparing the dough for our corn tortillas represents the challenge of handwork.

Equipment Mise en Place
For this recipe you will need a nonreactive pot, such as a porcelain-lined steel campfire pot (known as Granite-Ware); a fine conical strainer; a slow cooker; a wooden spoon; a footed colander; a food processor; a box grater; a tea strainer; a rubber spatula; a tortilla press and a heavy quart-sized zipper-lock bag or a rolling pin and a heavy half-gallon-sized zipper-lock bag; a pair of scissors; a pastry brush; a digital scale, a heavy, well-seasoned griddle (if you have one), square or round, or a 10-inch nonstick skillet; and a long metal spatula for flipping the tortillas.

Ingredients
10 cups spring or filtered water

1 heaping tablespoon culinary lime (for more information on culinary lime, click here)

1 1/2 cups (9 ounces) Anson Mills Henry Moore Yellow Hominy Corn

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 ear fresh sweet corn, shucked (optional)

Vegetable oil for brushing

Directions
1. Pour the water into a nonreactive pot and bring to a simmer over high heat. Add the culinary lime and stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve the powder. Remove the pot from the heat and let stand. (It’s best to set the pot next to the slow cooker so you can decant the lime water into the cooker without agitating the solids that settle on the bottom.)

2. After 4 to 5 hours there will be a thin, crisp lime skin on the surface of the water. The liquid beneath will be clear, and a layer of cloudy lime solids will be hovering over the bottom of the pot. Set a fine conical strainer over the slow cooker. Lift the pot with lime water, tilt it gently, and pour the liquid through the strainer, leaving the cloudy solids in the pot (the lime skin will remain in the strainer). Allow the solids to settle again, then decant more lime water into the slow cooker. Repeat this process until only about 1 1/2 cups of cloudy solids and water remain at the bottom of the pot. Pour the lime skin and solids down the drain and rinse the sink well. Pour the corn kernels into the slow cooker. Let settle, then skim off and discard any floating kernels. Cover the slow cooker and soak the corn overnight at room temperature .

3. Turn the slow cooker on low and cook the corn for 5 1/2 hours. (The liquid should climb to the gentlest simmer slowly, so slowly you won’t even notice it happening.) To check for doneness, using a wooden spoon, lift 1 or 2 kernels out of the water, run them under cold water, and taste them. If done, they will be soft and ever so slightly chewy, with a gel-like texture, but with no hard, starchy center.

4. Near the end of cooking, grate the ear of corn (if using) on the large holes of a box grater set over a plate to catch the juices. Strain the pulp through a mesh strainer set over a small bowl. (View photo. Click photo to close.) Set the solids in the strainer and the corn milk aside. Have a food processor at hand.

5. Turn off the slow cooker and, using potholders, carry the ceramic insert to the sink. Run hot tap water into the pot to flush out any bits of pericarp (a cellophane-like skin that coats the kernels when raw), stirring with a wooden spoon, for about 5 minutes. Turn the corn into a footed colander set in the sink and rinse under hot water, rubbing the kernels between your palms (view photo). While the corn is still hot (hot is important), add half of it and 1/4 teaspoon salt to the food processor and process until very fine. Stop the processor at intervals, and, using a rubber spatula, scrape the more finely processed dough, now called masa, near the blade up from the bottom and the coarser masa near the top down toward the blade. The idea is to get the masa as fine as possible. Repeat the stop-and-start processing, using a rubber spatula to manipulate the masa, until it begins to chase itself around the bowl. Lift the food processor lid and feel the masa; it should feel stiff and sticky. Add 1 tablespoon corn solids from the strainer and 2 teaspoons corn milk (or water if you are not using fresh corn) and process until combined. Feel the masa again; it should feel slightly wetter. Wet your hands and carefully scrape the masa out of the processor into a mixing bowl. Remove the blade and, using the rubber spatula, scrape the masa clinging to it and to the inside of the food processor bowl into the mixing bowl. Repeat the process with the remaining hominy, salt, and fresh corn (or water), adding the resulting masa to the mixing bowl. Knead the masa lightly in the bowl to combine the 2 batches—it will be sticky. Cover the bowl and let the masa rest and hydrate for about 15 minutes (view photo).

6. Meanwhile, soak the food processor bowl and parts in cold water in the sink. Heat a heavy 10-inch square or round griddle, preferably well-seasoned cast-iron, or a 10-inch nonstick skillet, over medium-high heat. If using a tortilla press, with scissors, remove the top of a quart-sized zipper-lock bag, cutting just below the seal (view photo). Snip along the 2 side seams and the bottom, creating 2 squares of plastic. If using a rolling pin rather than a tortilla press, cut apart a gallon-sized zipper-lock bag in the same manner.

7. Divide the masa into 14 or 15 equal pieces. Roll each piece between your palms into a ball—it should be about the size of golf ball. If you have a digital kitchen scale, each one should weigh about 1.3 ounces. (The size of the masa balls is important. If they are too small, once pressed, the tortillas may be too thin; if too large, they may be too thick.) Set the balls on a sheet pan and cover lightly with plastic wrap. Brush the griddle with a thin coating of oil and blot the excess with paper towels.

8. If using a tortilla press: Open the press, place a plastic sheet on the bottom plate, and brush it very lightly with oil (view photo). Place a masa ball on the plastic and flatten it with the palm of your hand (view photo). Brush the masa very lightly with oil and cover with the second plastic sheet. Close the tortilla press (view photo). (You don’t have to bear down on it, it’s perfectly capable of pressing a tortilla without much pressure.) Open the press, then moisten your hands lightly with water and pull off the top layer of plastic. Lift the bottom sheet of plastic and invert the tortilla onto your damp palm (view photo). Release the tortilla onto the hot griddle. If the griddle is the right temperature, the tortilla will sizzle softly. After about 10 seconds it should begin to puff in places. After 20 seconds, use a long metal spatula to loosen the tortilla. Flip the tortilla when it is lightly golden and spotty brown (view photo). (You’ll want to rewarm and crisp the tortillas just before serving, so don’t overcook them at this point.) Repeat with the remaining masa balls.

9. If hand-rolling the tortillas: Place a sheet of plastic on the counter and brush it lightly with oil. Place a masa ball on the plastic and flatten it with the palm of your hand. Brush the masa very lightly with oil and cover with the second plastic sheet. Using the rolling pin, roll the ball into a 6-inch round of even thickness. Moisten your hands lightly with water and pull off the top layer of plastic. Lift the bottom sheet of plastic and invert the tortilla onto your damp palm (view photo). Release the tortilla onto the hot griddle. If the griddle is the right temperature, the tortilla will sizzle softly. After about 10 seconds it should begin to puff in places. After 20 seconds, use a long metal spatula to loosen the tortilla. Flip the tortilla when it is lightly golden and spotty brown (view photo). (You’ll want to rewarm and crisp the tortillas just before serving, so don’t overcook them at this point.) Repeat with the remaining masa balls.

Note: The tortillas must be kept supple after cooking. As they come off the griddle, stack them on a clean, damp kitchen towel and fold the towel over the top. Alternatively, hold the tortillas in a covered baking dish. Fresh-made corn tortillas are considered daily food, meant to be prepared and consumed the same day. Once refrigerated, they crack rather than bend when folded or rolled.

Makes fourteen or fifteen 5-inch tortillas

Cooking Remarks
Long before pot-au-feu, boeuf en daube, and coq au vin joined the chorus line of French braises, Native Americans put a lid on the art of slow cooking. The delicacy of their clay pots demanded an equal delicacy of technique—one that kept things well under the boiling point. When we began working on this fresh masa recipe we knew attention would be the operative word. Attention notwithstanding, we had a tough time keeping our stovetop heat consistently supportive: The water sometimes crept up to an angry boil and sometimes languished sullenly below a simmer. Unexpected evaporation required constant vigilance and fresh infusions of water, and cooking times remained unpredictable. At this point, we went American old-school and bought a brand new slow cooker. A ceramic lining and high and low heat settings make a slow cooker a modern-day clay pot, and its timer function makes it a babysitter extraordinaire. All the ruminations we put the corn through, the permutations of different heat settings and cooking times came down to a single, simple formula: lime water and corn cooked on low heat for
5 1/2 hours. No stirring, no liquid adjustments, no problem.

When you are adding liquid to the cooked hominy, whether in the form of sweet corn milk or water, be aware that the dough must be extremely fine and wet enough to produce steam—and thus air pockets. If you get the masa to the proper consistency and the griddle temperature right, you can crank tortillas out at a surprisingly effortless pace.

 

Initially, we rolled the tortillas out by hand between sheets of heavy plastic. It’s not difficult—the flour tortillas we developed recently, for instance, are more difficult to roll out. But after making the recipe multiple times, we broke down and ordered a tortilla press. There was no looking back.

 

The addition of sweet corn solids and corn milk came to us as a way of introducing a mild sweetness into the tortillas, along with some moisture. You may opt to skip the corn and use hot water instead.

Cleanup

Lime stains. Anyone with a shower stall knows that. Even our slow cooker developed a fine ring of lime that resisted scrubbing. So we turned to our favorite household cleaner: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Don’t laugh. This noncaustic, nonabrasive sponge can wipe a stain off of anything with very little effort.

Liming makes the starches in corn extremely sticky. After you transfer the warm, just-made masa to a mixing bowl, soak the food processor bowl, blade, and lid in cold water right away. Cold water loosens sticky masa; hot water just makes it worse.