Houston-Style Flour Tortillas

 

Oh dear, I've gone and done it. I've made the ultimate flour tortilla.We'll never eat supermarket tortillas again without comparing them to these. These tortillas are so good you could eat them on their own, no filling or dip required. But when you've gone to the effort of making carnitas, or slow cooked brisket, or chicken fajitas, what better vehicle to deliver it from your plate to your face than these.

Houston-Style Flour Tortillas
from Lisa Fain's The Homesick Texan Cookbook
Makes 8

60g lard (if lard scares you, then you can use butter but the taste won't be the same)
1 cup water
2 cups plain flour, plus extra for working with the dough
1 teaspoon of sea salt flakes

Put the lard and the water into a small pan and put it on a medium heat to melt the lard.

Stir the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Pour in the lard and water mixture and stir until a loose ball forms. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead for 2 minutes and you will end up with a dough that is as smooth as a baby's bot. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for an hour. This resting period is crucial to the tenderness of the finished tortilla so don't skip this step.

Once the dough has had it's rest, cut it  into 8 equal pieces and roll them into balls. Cover again and rest it for another 30 minutes. After the dough has rested, place each dough ball one at a time onto a floured surface and roll it out until it's thin, about 20 cm in diameter. Don't overwork the dough, or you'll end up with tough tortillas. As you roll them, stack them on top of each other with a piece of baking paper between them to separate them and stop them from sticking together. Cover them with a cloth until you are ready to cook them.

In a dry cast-iron or non-stick pan heated on high, cook each tortilla for 30  seconds on one side, turn it over and cook for 1 minute on the other side. it should start to puff up a bit. Turn it back over and cook again for 30 more seconds. Place the cooked tortillas in a basket lined with a cloth. Repeat the process with the remaining balls of dough.