Yesterday, I told you how I came home from Julie & Julia with the overwhelming urge to cook – and not just to cook a little bit, but to cook something really good. Any of the incredible-looking French dishes from the movie were out, because about 95% of them started with large hunks of meat, and no matter how much butter you slather on a chicken, or how many vegetables you stuff inside it, it’s still not vegetarian. Plus, it had been a long day of housework, involving lots of drilling and lifting and standing on ladders, so we were kind of tired.
The compromise? A fancied-up version of our standby favorite: burritos.
Fresh tortilla with all the fixin's
There’s probably a “right” way to do Tex-Mex, and I’m pretty sure my way isn’t it. The typical quick-and-dirty Tex-Mex dinner in my house is: can of refried beans, jar of salsa, grated cheese, bag of chips. Not so impressive. But last night it was much, much better: homemade salsa, homemade refried beans, homemade tortillas (plus non-homemade cheese… what can you do?)
The salsa was the easy part, and I followed a pretty standard pattern: fresh tomatoes (I used Cherokee Purples), garlic, onion, red pepper, cilantro, lime juice, all chopped up fine and mixed together. As a general rule, you should chop everything more finely than I did, or use a food processor, or else you’ll have very chunky salsa. But sometimes that’s nice. I still haven’t figured out the trick of keeping salsa from getting too watery – I even squeezed out (and saved) the juice from the tomatoes, but it was still very wet. Any of you know how to deal with over-juicy tomatoes?
Fresh tomato salsa
I learned a few months ago that you can make refried beans from scratch, and it was a revelation. No more canned refried beans for me! I’ve been waiting and waiting for a chance to share this one with you. It’s fast and easy, and much tastier than the processed kind. It has a pleasing, chunky texture, and you know exactly what’s in it. (I always felt there was something a little… odd… about refried beans. Not sure why, except that they kind of look like dog food. Am I the only one who’s noticed that? The homemade kind definitely don’t!)
I had never made tortillas before last night (except maybe at some long-forgotten, ambitious co-op lunch), but I’d always kind of wanted to try. It turned out to be nearly the easiest bread I’d ever made. I say nearly because you do have to roll them out. It’s not that arduous for a small batch, but it would give me pause if I were throwing a party. It is easier, of course, if you have a willing cooking partner, which I did, so I can’t honestly speak to how long it took. (Incidentally, both of the cookbooks I referenced suggested “if you have a tortilla press…” which I’d always thought was a silly single-purpose gadget. After last night, I can imagine that if you made these with any regularity, you would really, really want to have a tortilla press.) But the cooking is incredibly, delightfully quick: toss the tortilla on the frying pan, wait about 30-60 seconds, flip it, wait another 30 seconds, remove and repeat. These tortillas were so well-behaved I couldn’t believe it. They didn’t stick at all, firmed up quickly enough that you could flip them just with tongs, and yet stayed soft enough (mostly) that you could make a burrito out of them. The hardest part was just getting them into the frying pan without letting them double over – as you can see, most of ours ended up rather misshapen. But that didn’t affect their usefulness or deliciousness!
What do you like to make from scratch that you’d normally buy in a store? Comment and tell me!
Mash the simmering beans against the side of the pot until they get nice and thick
Refried Beans
- One can (or a couple cups) of black or pinto beans
- 1/4 of an onion, chopped
- 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- A few tablespoons of water or (better yet) stock
- salt, pepper, and other appropriate seasonings
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Add the onion, then the garlic, and stir occasionally until they’re beginning to brown. You could add cumin or other seasonings now if you wanted.
Add the beans and liquid, bringing them to a simmer. Once they’re warm, start stirring and mashing the beans against the side of the pan. As you mash, they’ll slowly become smooth and thick.
That’s all there is to it! Keep stirring and mashing until you like the consistency. Don’t let them dry out – if they start to, add more liquid. The end product should be thick but easy to spoon and spread. Towards the end, add salt and pepper to taste.
A stack of fresh, hot tortillas
Tortillas
- 2 cups flour (white or whole wheat)
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 c warm water (plus or minus)
Stir the flour and salt together. Drizzle in the oil and mix until it’s well blended. Add water slowly, stirring, until you have a soft-ish dough that holds together well. (One book I read described it as “the texture of your earlobe” which I think is great.) Cover it with plastic or a damp cloth, and let it sit about 20 minutes.
Divide the dough into 8-10 pieces and form them into balls. Let them rest a few more minutes, then roll them into flat, round disks. They should be very thin, about as thin as you can get them without them falling apart. We found that the thinnest ones had the best taste when cooked, but were more likely to crack when we rolled them – slightly thicker ones were more pliable but tasted kind of doughy. So, experiment and look for a happy middle ground.
The tortilla will start to form bubbles on the skillet, and cooks very quickly!
To cook them, put a large, dry (unoiled) skillet over medium to medium-high heat and let it get nice and hot. Add the first tortilla and let it cook for less than a minute, until there are nice brown spots on the underside. Then flip it, and cook another 30 seconds for the second side to get browned. Then remove to a napkin-covered plate, and start the next one. Don’t multitask or get distracted! They cook (and burn) quickly.
Our very own burrito bar, (almost) all made from scratch: beans, cheese, tortillas, salsa