Homemade tortilla chips
- Preparation and cooking time
- Prep:
- Cook:
- More effort
- Makes about 48 tortilla wedges
Ingredients
For the corn tortillas
- 100g strong white bread flour
- 150g - maize flour (fine cornmeal)
- 150ml water
- 25g lard (or vegetarian shortening)
- 5g salt
- 2 tablespoons crushed dried chilli flakes
- 1 tablespoon black onion seeds
- A few twists of the mill for black pepper
For turning into the chips
- 100g strong white bread flour
- 150g - maize flour (fine cornmeal)
- 150ml water
- 25g lard (or vegetarian shortening)
- 5g salt
- 2 tablespoons crushed dried chilli flakes
- 1 tablespoon black onion seeds
- A few twists of the mill for black pepper
- Vegetable or other plain oil for frying
- salt
- paprika
Method
- STEP 1Mix all the ingredients together and knead until just smooth and round into a ball (about 4-5 minutes). Dust the dough with flour lightly then leave to rest for half an hour under a tea towel or cling film. This doesn’t rise as there is no yeast but does need time for the gluten to begin to develop
- STEP 2Split the dough into either six or eight equal pieces, depending on how big you want your tortillas. You can either do this by sight (chop the dough in half and so on) or, to get the tortillas as equal as possible, weigh the dough and work out the weight for an eighth or tenth of that total. Then weigh portions out accordingly
- STEP 3Put your frying pan on the hob over a medium-high heat
- STEP 4Flour your work surface and roll out a ball of dough thinly (about 1-2 mm thick) and to as close to a circle as possible. Don’t worry if it’s a wonky ‘circle’ as that’s all part of the hand-made charm (please note these tortillas are a little more tricky to handle than normal flour tortillas and will need a little extra flour on your work surface to stop them sticking)
- STEP 5Pop the tortilla on the frying pan and toast on the first side until it is getting dark brown but not burnt. This will only be a minute or even less so keep a keen eye on it. Flip over and repeat on the other side
- STEP 6While the first tortilla is dry-frying roll out the next one, but bear in mind how quick they cook! Repeat until all tortillas are browned on both sides
- STEP 7When the soft tortillas are made, cut them into eight wedges each
- STEP 8Have a few sheets of paper towel ready. Also, have a small bowl ready and the salt and paprika to hand
- STEP 9Pour a layer of oil into the same frying pan, to a few millimeters – it doesn’t have to be a huge amount of oil
- STEP 10Fry as many tortilla wedges at a time as you can fit in the frying pan – fry for about one minute on each side, flipping them over as they puff up a little and brown lightly. Take them out and place on the kitchen towel to get rid of any excess oil
- STEP 11Immediately (while still hot) place them in the small bowl and sprinkle over a little salt and the smoked paprika, toss them so they are covered and set aside.
- STEP 12Repeat steps 10 and 11 until all of the tortillas are fried and seasoned. Serve when they are cooled and have crisped up. They’ll keep for a couple of days in an airtight container