[Sca-cooks] Corn Tortillas

[Maggie MacDonald]

At 11:27 PM 9/4/01 -0500,Stefan li Rous said something like:
>On the street corners in Mexico it was just the tortilla put on
>the hot charcoal fired grills. But since they were cooking the meat
>on the same grills, I imagine there was a some oil on the grills
>from that. Those street corner tacos sure smelled good, but not
>knowing the water the tomatoes and lettuce had been washed in, we
>never got any.

The reason you can get away with laying the tortilla on the grill in Mexico
is because they have super fresh quality tortillas. The ones you pick up in
most of American are hard as a rock and crisp as a cracker (and
crrrrrrap).  The ones I pick up at my corner produce stand just north of
Tijuana here, are delivered daily, and soft enough to wrap around your
finger without cracking or breaking (and frequently still warm).

>Puffy? Were you trying to fry corn tortillas or flour ones? I was
>specifically talking about frying corn tortilla pieces. The corn
>ones will puff up some, mostly when cooking whole ones rather than
>pieces, and no where near as much as the wheat flour ones.

Corn tortillas puff up really nicely, and deep frying them is a pretty
common way to get the tortilla chips or tostadas.

Regards,
Maggie MacD.