Poblano oil flour tortillas
Happy New Year and fortune and good health please be on your side in 2022.
This blog turned 10 months old two days ago and it feels as though my life has found its footing ever since the first post. When I started the blog I had no idea that pan dulce would take over my life, that anyone would want to eat my food, that I would find community, at long last, in Atlanta. It’s hard for me to not give into sentimentality, I’ve always been this way. But I don’t know that I would have found the specific joy of baking for people and being the neighborhood concha lady if not for this blog, if not for the small number of people last year who trusted me enough to guide them in the kitchen through recipes. That’s not a small thing.
In 2022 there will of course be more recipes, but also much more pan dulce. My little panaderia was recently written about in Eater ATL which was actually a little bit awkward for me as much as it was and is also exciting and flattering. I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything yet, to be frank. But in 2022 there will be as many pan dulce pop ups that I can have, safely, during a pandemic, and so hopefully that annoying critical voice within learns to live a little, to give me a break already.
Here is a recipe for small batch poblano oil flour tortillas. My homemade corn tortilla experiences have been nothing to write home about; I have yet to achieve the beautiful puff with a corn tortilla and I even use the good masa! Probably some practice is all I need, but I had a suspicion that I would have better luck with flour tortillas, and that proved right. The first test with these was made exclusively with avocado oil because I didn’t want to use animal fat, which got me thinking. On New Year’s Eve I made a roasted poblano and scallion dip for dinner that was extremely delicious and also filled our entire condo with the scent of roasted poblano so I knew I wanted to do that again. For the dip I just drizzled a bit of olive oil over the vegetables but I thought if I simply added more oil to the roasting dish, it would give me poblano-flavored oil, which is what happened.
At a 425F oven temperature, the peppers blister and blacken in spots easily. What I love about this recipe is that there is basically no waste. Remove the skins from the poblanos after they’ve cooled with the back of a butter knife or just your fingers. Slice the now softened peppers into strips and make a quesadilla with the tortillas. You will have about ¼ cup of leftover poblano oil from roasting; store it in an airtight container after it cools completely and use it anywhere you would use vegetable oil or olive oil. The slight smokiness and sweetness from the peppers perfumes the oil in just the way I hoped it would. It would make a really nice base for a vinaigrette, I think.
Poblano and Monterey Jack cheese quesadillas made with poblano oil flour tortillas.
I read many flour tortilla recipes and ended up modifying the Epicurious recipe I just linked to. The tortillas were too small for the first test; 45 grams is a good size for tacos, I felt, but I wanted to make quesadillas so opted for double that at 65 grams. This meant a smaller yield, but a small batch of tortillas that you should eat immediately just felt right to me. These are “right now” tortillas; tortillas that can’t wait.
Some pointers:
I’ve learned that the most important thing when making flour tortillas, aside from rolling them paper thin, is to let the dough rest. Rest your dough for at least 1 hour or even up to 12 hours (either in the fridge or on your counter covered snugly with plastic wrap). Resting the dough will help the gluten to relax (relatable) which will in turn make rolling the tortillas much easier for you. The goal is to roll the tortillas paper thin, as thin as you can without tearing the dough.
Omit the leaf lard if you want. I’ve made these tortillas both with and without lard and prefer even just a small amount, because I found those to be softer and more pliable, and just like the ones I’ve eaten my whole life. Add in an additional tablespoon of poblano oil (5 tablespoons in total) if you skip the leaf lard.
The dough will tell you if it needs to rest and relax longer. If it curls up around its edges when you’re rolling, stop what you’re doing, cover the tortilla with a kitchen towel and let it continue to rest for an additional 30-40 minutes there on your work surface. It may seem annoying to have to wait but you’ll only be doing a service to your tortillas bym letting them rest.
I would skip the tortilla press for flour tortillas, but it’s up to you! Rolling them might seem intimidating but I personally found it difficult to get them as thin as they need to be with a press the way I can when making corn tortillas.
Roll one tortilla as another one cooks. You’ll get into a groove this way since it takes about the same amount of time to roll out a tortilla as it does for one to cook.
These tortillas aren’t really meant to be made ahead of time (although the dough itself can be made up to 12 hours before serving) , they taste best straight off the comal while still warm. The scent and flavor of the poblano oil also begins to dissipate a tiny bit once the tortillas are cooled completely, I found. When they are warm you can really smell and taste the poblano.
To store the tortillas after cooking: let tortillas cool completely in the tortilla warmer or kitchen towel before transferring to an airtight container, such as a gallon size freezer bag. Keep tortillas in your fridge, where they’ll be good for about 24 hours before going hard. Sorry, but there’s no preservatives in these!
To reheat cooked tortillas: Reheat on a comal or other cast iron pan for about 25-30 seconds per side; let tortillas steam just for a couple minutes by wrapping them in a kitchen towel or tortilla warmer right before serving.
As always always always, if you have questions, concerns, compliments, or maybe you’d like a visual for how I roll the tortillas in the form of pictures or even a video if need be—feel free to holler at me on Twitter or Instagram.
EQUIPMENT USED:
Small baking dish; I used an 8x8 dish I typically bake brownies in to roast the poblanos
Fine mesh sieve for straining the seeds if they were left in the peppers when roasting
Medium-size mixing bowl
Kitchen scale to weigh out the flour, or measuring cups and spoons. You will need: 1 cup, liquid measuring cup, tablespoon, ¼ cup, 1 teaspoon.
Gallon-size freezer bags, or an additional mixing bowl covered with plastic wrap for the tortilla dough while it rests.
Fork for mixing the dough initially
Comal or other cast iron skillet
Spatula for flipping the tortillas or just your hands if you, like me, are used to flipping them this way.
Tortilla warmer or kitchen towel
Poblano Oil Flour Tortillas
Yield: 6 (7-inch) tortillas
Poblano oil:
2 poblano peppers, stems removed and cut in half
½ cup vegetable oil
Tortillas:
2 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon leaf lard, optional
¼ cup poblano oil (5 tablespoons if omitting the leaf lard)
½ cup hot water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
For the poblano oil:
Heat oven to 425F. Remove stems (and seeds, if you want) from the peppers, then slice them in half lengthwise. Place peppers in a baking dish with high sides, such as an 8x8 square dish.
Pour the vegetable oil over the poblanos. Roast for 30 minutes, flipping the peppers at the 15 minute mark. The skins will be blistered and blackened in spots; the oil will be sizzling dramatically.
Place the peppers in a heat-proof bowl and cover with plastic wrap to be used in quesadillas with the tortillas you make, or however you want to eat them.
The poblano oil can sit in the baking dish as it cools and until you’re ready to use it in the tortillas. If you left the seeds in, strain them out using a fine mesh sieve before adding to the tortilla dough.
For the tortillas:
To a mixing bowl add 2 cups of all-purpose flour. If you’re using leaf lard, add 1 tablespoon to the flour. Cut the lard into the flour just using your fingertips, or a pastry cutter if you must.
Drizzle in ¼ cup of the poblano oil into the bowl now; if you’re omitting the leaf lard, drizzle in ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon of the oil.
Measure ½ cup of hot tap water, then add the 1 teaspoon of salt into the water, stirring with the teaspoon to help the salt dissolve.
Pour the hot salt water into the mixing bowl and stir the dough with a fork.
Once the flour/fats/water are mostly combined, switch to kneading the dough with your hands. As you’re kneading, the dough will become smoother and more elastic—it should not be sticky; I like to knead for just a few minutes, about 3.
Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces that weigh 65 grams each. There will be about 25 grams of dough remaining which you can use to make one very cute little tortilla.
Place each dough ball into a large plastic bag, seal the bag and let the dough balls rest and relax. Feel free to do the same at this point.
Rolling the tortillas:
Heat your comal or other cast iron pan over medium-high heat.
After resting the dough, shape one dough ball at a time. Roll the dough ball on your counter or work surface without any flour yet so that the dough creates tension with the surface. This will help to shape it into a round ball.
Once shaped, very lightly flour your work surface. You only need a little flour because you don’t want too much to come off on your comal.
Starting in the center of the dough ball, roll the tortilla vertically with a rolling pin a few times. Turn the tortilla horizontally now and roll again. Then give the tortilla a quarter turn after every roll with the rolling pin to help achieve even thinness. The tortilla will likely stick to your work surface a bit, but it’s fine; don’t be tempted to add more flour when rolling. Just carefully peel the tortilla from the surface as you give it a quarter turn; the dough is pretty forgiving as long as you’re gentle with it. Once rolled out the tortilla should measure about 7 inches, but don’t worry if it’s not exactly 7 inches and also don’t worry if the tortillas aren’t perfectly round! It is more important to roll them thin than to roll them into a perfect circle.
Cooking the tortillas:
After rolling out one tortilla, place it on the dry, preheated comal or other nonstick pan and let it cook for 30-45 seconds, or until large air bubbles appear on the surface. Flip tortilla and let it cook an additional 25 seconds or so. If the air bubbles are browning too dark for your liking, just lower the heat to medium. Keep in mind if you lower the heat, the tortillas will need to cook a bit longer, about 35 seconds once flipped.
Transfer cooked tortillas to a kitchen towel and cover while you repeat the process with the remaining tortillas.
These flour tortillas are best served warm, straight from the comal.