Corn Tortillas: Or, The Female Valentino

She was billed The Female Rudolph Valentino, the dark exotic beauty from Hollywood's Silent Film Era. Orson Welles, ten years her junior, fell deeply in love with her and called her the "most exciting woman he had ever met." And yet I doubt that the fabulosa Dolores del Río knew how to make homemade corn tortillas.

As I see these vintage publicity shots of her wearing the fine gowns that the best designers of the day created just for her, I cannot see this daughter of an aristocratic Mexican family mixing the ground corn, lime and water with her lady-like hands or rolling the masa (dough) into balls or flattening them in a tortilla press. It is hard to imagine her standing over a hot fire while she heats up those homemade corn tortillas on a cast iron comal and serving them with beans and rice to her family. And why would she? Leaving behind a Mexico that had been ravaged by a bloody revolution that left at least a million dead, she came to Hollywood and gained international acclaim as a singer, dancer and actress. And yet, despite her extraordinary talents and undeniable beauty, the advent of Talkies revealed her foreign accent and so her star gradually began to fade. By the 1940's she returned to her native country and made some classic movies that are a part of the canon of The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema.

Who can forget María Candelaria with Dolores in the title role, which won Mexico The Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or Award for Best Picture in 1943? Her portrayal of Maria Candelaria, the beautiful but doomed Indian girl is heartbreaking to watch, so much so that is hard to believe that Dolores did not understand how it felt to be poor and dark and misunderstood. In other films, hers is the tragic but stoically dignified face of the rural woman who loses a husband or son to war. Watching her films as a young girl, I think I finally found a window into the world that my mother spoke about but is no more.

Perhaps I was wrong about Dolores del Río. Could it be that her world was not as rarified as I thought? Maybe, just maybe, this beautiful and fine artist knew a thing or two about making corn tortillas after all.

Homemade Corn Tortillas

It is difficult to image Mexican food without corn tortillas for their history goes back thousands of years to Pre-Hispanic times. Once you make them at home, you will see tacos and tortillas in a whole new light—like homemade bread, its flavor is irresistible. No dried out, store-bought corn tortilla can compare. Besides being lots of fun to make, those friends of yours who have never tasted a homemade tortilla will forever rave about your cooking. It's true!

Depending on how hard you press your tortilla press, your tortilla can be thin or as thick as you want. I like mine a little thick. I like to buy my flour at the Mexican foods market in my neighborhood, but you can find corn tortilla flour at almost any grocery store, especially in the Western part of the United States.They are absolutely no trouble to make. Just make only as much as you need, because if you make a lot, you are going to eat way too many of them, and what will happen to your waistline?

(Note: I couldn't help but notice that that corn tortilla flour that I buy at my Mexican market makes the softest and flexible corn tortillas I had ever tasted. Their secret? Just add a bit of Harina La Pina flour to your corn tortilla masa as I have done in this recipe. This is especially nice if you have to save a few tortillas for later but you don't want them to harden. Still, an all corn tortilla is more flavorful.)

Ingredients:

2 cups corn tortilla flour

1 1/3 cups hot water water

To make soft corn tortillas (optional): Add 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of Harina La Pina white flour that is made especially for making flour tortillas. Add 1 tablespoon water for every tablespoon of white flour. Please do not use all purpose flour.
Instructions
Pre-heat your griddle to medium-high heat (cast iron is best, but any griddle will do). When a drop of water sizzles and dances on the griddle, you are ready to heat the flattened corn tortilla.

While the griddle is heating, take the corn flour and water and mix them together. Knead the masa (dough) until it is no longer sticky. (If you have added Harina La Pina flour, the balls will be somewhat sticky.) Form into small to medium size balls and put each one between two plastic sheets and press flat it with a tortilla press as shown.

Carefully peel the plastic sheets away from the flattened tortilla and carefully lay it on the griddle. Heat the tortilla on the heated griddle for about 30 seconds or so, and, using a steel spatula, flip it on the other side. Flip the tortilla once again, and put in a tortilla warmer or wrapped in a cloth. Put any unused corn tortilla masa in a plastic bag and store in your refrigerator. It will keep for about a week. Before making the tortillas, bring the masa to room temperture so they will not come out stiff.

Enjoy corn tortillas with any kind of Mexican food, or do as I and most Mexicans do: eat them with everything, even with a hotdog and mustard!

Ah, Horchata!

I'm writing to you today with the knowledge that perhaps I shouldn't be sharing this recipe for horchata with you. You see, after consuming pre-fab taco joint horchatas, you might think that all horchatas are emulsified and homogenized and are just a little too perfect and a little too sweet. But, if you see beauty in imperfection, if you get lost in the deliciousness of a homemade beverage that might have tiny bits of rice in it, whose cinnamon taste comes from the bark the cinnamomum verum tree of Sri Lanka and not from a powder, if you love to drink it from a handblown glass with a thick ultramarine blue rim, then I must declare that you will never have enough horchata to satisfy your cravings—and what will become of you then?

Take my Belgian friend Claudine that tall and thin, elegant in an island-vibe, free-spirited kind of way, funny and talented and oh so insouciante Mexican food loving horchata-connoisseur artist friend of mine. She had been hounding me about making her some. So we struck a deal. She offered me some of her prized Belgian chocolate in exchange for my homemade horchata. How could I say no to that?
Of course, there are many ways to make horchata. The Spanish drink an horchata made from the tiger nuts, a starchy root that grows in the Valencia region of the country and are called chufas. (Monna of Slow Blogs, a Canadian teacher living in Barcelona, Spain, is probably enjoying one right now come to think.) Mexicans love horchata made from rice and cinnamon, almonds sometimes, with a few drops of lime juice. Regardless of how you make it, it is one refreshing drink, perfect for those winter days when it is a blazing 80 degrees outside like it was just last Sunday here in California (so I'm bragging). I can always count on an icy horchata to quench the flames when chiles burn hot and furious on my tongue. I love to ladle it up from a large beehive shaped glass jar that has pieces of cinnamon bark floating on top. In Mexico it is part of a colorful and delicious line up of aguas frescas like garnet colored agua de jamaica (hibiscus flower tea), agua de tamarindo (tamarind water) and other natural fruit flavor drinks that are found all over the country.

It is a little surprising to me that people can be oh so particular about this white sweet drink. Some like it watery, others thick. Some put milk in their horchata, others don't. So I decided to experiment. I wanted a classic Mexican tasting horchata strong on cinnamon and a just a hint of lime. Sweet without being cloying, full bodied without being thick. Chalkiness was positively out of the question. Most of all, Claudine had to love it.
I think I have come up with a good one. And the best part is that you can adapt it to your taste. It can be as sweet (or not) or as milky (or not) as you want. One thing is for sure, it will pack a cinnamon wallop that is essential to any great tasting horchata. Will it look or taste just like your Mexican abuelita's? I'll let you fiddle around with the recipe until it does.
So, if you can appreciate something natural and unrefined and are willing to forgo ready-mix powdered horchata "perfection", then give this horchata a try. You might find that imperfection has a beauty all its own.

Horchata

How well your horchata turns out will mostly depend on the preparation. Grittiness or lack of it depends on how well you strain the cinnamon and rice. Use a very fine mesh strainer or a cheese cloth over a large wire mesh strainer. (I like to use a thin cotton flour sack cloth or something similar instead of cheese cloth.) If you want your horchata to be thick or thin to the point of wateriness depends on how long you blend the rice and how much cold water and/or milk you add to the almost finished drink. So, add it one cup at a time until it is at the consistency you like best.
Ingredients:
4 ½ cups raw long grain white rice
3 long sticks of cinnamon bark, shredded
¼ cup of almonds, coarsely chopped (optional)
7 cups of boiling water
4 to 5 cups cold water and/or milk
couple of drops of lemon or lime juice
simple sugar syrup (recipe below)
Instructions:To make the sugar syrup mix 1 cup of raw sugar with 1 cup water in a small sauce pan and boil together, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside and let cool. About 3 minutes or so. Set aside.

Take the shredded cinnamon bark and toast in a skillet over medium heat for a few minutes. (Do not burn.) Remove from skillet and place in a medium to large sized pot. Add rice and almonds. Pour 7 cups of boiling water into the pot. Cover and let it sit overnight or for about 7 hours.
Next, ladle some of the water, rice, almonds and cinnamon bark into a blender. If you want your horchata to be a bit watery, blend for only a few seconds. If you want a more milky consistency, blend until the mixture reaches an almost paste-like consistency. Now, take the blended mixture and strain over a wide-mouth pitcher using a steel mesh strainer that has been covered by a cheesecloth that has been folded 4 times over to ensure that the horchata will be smooth and not gritty. Repeat this step until all the rice and cinnamon have been blended.
Now, add about 4 to 5 cups cold water and/or milk into the pitcher, or until the horchata is as thin or as thick as you like. Add a few drops of lemon or lime juice. Add simple sugar syrup to taste. Don't forget to add a few drops of vanilla extract if you wish.
Refrigerate for a few hours. Stir before serving. Pour over ice and enjoy the warm winter's day. Makes approximately 2 quarts. Serves 4.