Corn tortillas

“Corn, for Mexicans, is the golden jewel of our cuisine – we eat it every day in different forms. For me, the tastiest and most versatile way to eat corn is by making corn tortillas; either to wrap food or use as cutlery. Being totally honest, in Mexico, this is something that you buy fresh from a tortilleria (a tortilla shop that produces and sells freshly made tortillas). Here, they nixtamalize the corn and grind the nixtamal (corn kernels that have been cooked in a solution with limestone and water) to make the dough. This goes into a machine that presses the dough into round tortillas, before they are placed on a conveyor belt and cooked at speed. They make thousands a day! As a child, I was sent here to buy my family’s tortilla batch. I’ll never forget the smell of nixtamal in the tortilleria; a warm nutty, tangy aroma reminiscent of oats. The tortillero would wrap my order either in paper or a towel. Before they did so, I would always pinch a tortilla and borrow the counter’s salt shaker, rolling myself a hot, salty one for the journey home. I didn’t learn to make these before I moved to London and eventually grew tired of bringing tortillas back in my suitcase. I taught myself and even learnt how to make my own nixtamal. That, however, is a longer process, so the recipe below uses masa harina, or GMO-free corn flour, which still makes a perfect corn tortilla. ”