Corn Tortillas with Blue Corn

I have stored away some food items for a rainy day. You can never tell when a natural disaster could strike, and leave you helpless for a short period of time.

I must be delusional today, because I decided it would be “fun” to try to make my own corn tortillas for homemade Tex-Mex. Little did I understand how labor intensive this project would become. I’m sure that once I’m not bumbling my way through this, things will get better.

Blue corn

I started off with an heirloom quality non GMO variety called Maiz Azul. Simply put… blue corn. Little did I know that in order to maximize the edibility of corn, it has to be nixtamalized. Nixtamalization is a process that involves cooking and steeping corn in an alkaline solution (typically limewater) to improve its nutritional value, texture, and flavor. This process, particularly crucial for maize in Mesoamerican cuisine, unlocks nutrients like vitamin B3 and calcium, making them more bioavailable. It also softens the corn, making it easier to grind into masa, the dough used for tortillas, tamales, and other dishes.

Grinding the blue corn

I ran the blue corn through several cycles in the stone mill before it started to resemble flour. Hmmm…. Since this is an experiment, I needed something to crack the grains first. Otherwise I’ll be here all day trying to make something useful out of this stuff.

old food processor

Running it through an old food processor did the trick. Cracking the grains before grinding them seemed to really help.

Bag of corn flour

Antique sifter

I knocked the rust out of an old Bromwells sifter to separate the bran from the finer flour itself. I’m going to shop around and buy a new one instead of continuing to use the rusty antique. But for now, this will work.

Sifted corn grain

After sifting, I ended up with fine corn flour and a bowl of grits. The grits will be cooked for a really fine breakfast for another time.

Mixing the dough

Since I don’t have any slaked lime just yet, I mixed my dough with Mesaca with the following recipe…

1 cup blue corn flour

1 cup masa harina (maseca)

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups hot water

The maseca is already made with the limewater and ready to use. I ordered some pickling lime from the internet and once it gets here, I’ll post about how it’s used to make the corn more digestible. For now, I mixed everything together in my Kitchen Aid until it was the consistency of Playdoh. I rolled it out into golf ball sized portions and squeezed it in a tortilla maker between two pieces of Ziplock baggie.

Tortilla maker

The tortillas don’t stack very well until they’re cooked, since the dough sticks together. So I pre staged dough balls and cut them as I made them.

Cut up for tortilla chips

I baked the chips in an oven for 20 minutes at 350*F until the chips were done. Even better is when they are fried in hot oil. They become crisp and light when drained on a paper towel.

Homemade blue tortilla chips

The tortilla chips are great for making nachos with cheese, tomatoes, and ground meat.

Blue grits

The left over grits are great cooked for about 20 - 25 minutes in a pot of water, and a raft of butter melted into a pile of cheddar cheese.