When packing up all of my kitchen gear, including numerous drawers stuffed with gadgets for specific purposes (I couldn’t leave my ceramic ginger grater behind!) to move to Paris awhile back, I somehow forgot my comal, my flat, hefty cast iron skillet that’s used to make tortillas. I don’t know how this happened, but there you are. Until recently, I’ve made do with a medium-size cast iron skillet, but the high-sided pan makes for awkward tortilla flipping, I’ve found.
Then I realized that the French have a similar skillet: the crepe pan, aka crepiere, which literally means “crepe maker.”
I paid lots more, naturellement, for this Staub, glazed-on-the-bottom, wooden-handled beauty of a skillet, but pretty, in this case, doesn’t get in the way of effectiveness.
This pan’s a dream.
I tried it out a few days ago with a batch of whole wheat tortillas, and it cooked them perfectly – and I loved using the funny-shaped wooden crepe spatula to flip my tortillas.
Here’s my recipe, with the water scaled back for the persnickety French flour, which is much fluffier than our American all-purpose, even the #65, available at Naturalia, the natural grocer. If using all-purpose, made in the USA white flour, just add a bit more water, and you should be fine. Oh, and one more thing – you don’t have to have a comal, or a crepe pan, for that matter, to make these. Any cast iron skillet will do.
WHOLE WHEAT TORTILLAS
INGREDIENTS
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups # 65 white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup cold butter
¾ cup warm water
1 tablespoon olive oil
WHAT YOU DO
Put first four ingredients in food processor and pulse a couple of times to blend. Add pats of cold butter and pulse only until mixture looks crumbly.
Now, add water only until the dough starts to come together. Don’t worry, though, if you add too much water by mistake: you can correct by just adding a bit more flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
Place the dough in a bowl that you’ve oiled with a bit of olive oil so it won’t stick, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and place in the fridge for a couple of hours.
When you’re ready to make tortillas, tear off a ping-pong ball-size bit of dough, roll into a ball, and pat into a disc. Roll out to a nice, thin tortilla (it’ll puff in size when you cook it), and place on a preheated (high) cast-iron skillet. Do NOT oil the pan.
See the tiny bubbles start to appear? Now it’s time to flip to the other side. The second side always takes a bit less time – just a few seconds. Slather on some butter, roll ‘er up, and enjoy! Et voila!
(Depending on size and thickness, this recipe should make 14-20 tortillas. I keep mine in the freezer so they stay fresh — they thaw in just a few minutes after you take them out. Oh, and don’t worry about funny shaped tortillas — I happen to like amoeba-shaped ones, because that way, I know that they were made by hand.)
