Sunday, September 23, 2012

Tortillas with Ghee, and Where have you been anyway??

Ok. We are at our new post! Surprise! Hello from Kuwait! I know, I have not been keeping anyone up-to-date, but apparently my blogging brain took the summer off. It showed up at the door this morning, jet lagged, sunburned, and with half its luggage missing. I swear, I’m gonna take back its credit cards. No telling what its been up to. I’ve been thinking in blog form, at times, but those mental blogs simply haven’t made it onto the computer. Anyway… I’m here now and shall simply jump back into things. Maybe, at random, I might catch up a little, but in the meantime. Here’s a recipe for tortillas made with ghee, because, as you know, in this family we don’t move anywhere unless we can have tortillas…

This recipe is adapted from two that I usually use. One is a fast-to-make recipe, but the tortillas are a bit flakey. The other is good, and makes better rolling tortillas, but you actually have to be PATIENT when you make them. You have to let the dough rest for minutes and minutes! Sometimes, I just can’t handle that. Last night, looking at both, I made tortillas in the following manner:

3 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbsp baking powder

between 1/2 and 3/4 cup ghee

slightly more than a cup of warmed milk

I mixed the dry ingredients together, and then using a sturdy whisk, blended in the ghee until I had a good crumble. Next, I added the warm milk, a little at a time, until it formed a loose, not too sticky ball. I continued to stir/knead the dough in the bowl until it was smooth and could be rolled into largish smooth balls by hand. On a floured surface, I rolled each ball out to the desired size, very thin, and cooked each on a hot, ungreased, skillet. When it poofs up, flip and cook a half minute or so on the other side. They cook fast.

Not sure if it was the ghee, or the warm milk, or what, but the dough was very easy to roll very thin and was still flexible and easy to handle. They did not taste greasy, and the finished tortillas were very flexible and rolled into burritos nicely. Yum!!

Other, not so traditional things about last night’s burritos was the meat was made of a beef kofta mix from the butcher, because that’s what was available, and I had no refried beans, so we took Egyptian ful beans (fava), and smushed them up. I let Honor loose with salt, pepper and garlic powder to spice them up. It made for a nice, spreadable, refried bean substitute. 

Our Tex-Arab-Mex was quite good! The only problem… it was too good. I have no leftovers for tonight…

6 comments:

Shannon said...

Hey you are back! Yay! I'll have to try this even though I have a ton of crisco to use up since this is a consumables post, and I can eat some tortillas, so I make sure to have plenty.

Connie said...

My only problem with this recipe, and it's not really a problem!, is that it's a busy one... you are rolling and cooking, one tortilla after the other, and there's not much messing around time in between or the pan gets too hot. This makes it hard to let the kids help roll them out, and they really want to help! I'll have to figure out what to do with all the crap on my counter and make more room. (new kitchen = new chaos to sort, and I don't even have HHE yet...) Honor did make one of these tortillas last night, and claimed that hers was the BEST one ever. :)

Nomads By Nature said...

Glad to see you back! I totally get the new kitchen = new chaos. I am always a bit glad not to have HHE for a while, at least until furniture is arranged and locations are tested for particular item placement. It does make for some unique challenges though of food preparation and storage. Sounds like y'all are well on your way to being settled with a homey tortilla meal! How did the kitties do in relocation and what did they think of the tortillas?

Connie said...

I really do not know why I took a break from blogging... my mind wandered! It has been good to have the break to rearrange things before HHE arrives, and we most definitely have been shuffling furniture and getting ready for it. I even talked the kids into switching rooms, which they were initially reluctant to do, but after I explained the layout in relation to their belongings, etc., they were happy with the change.
The kitties moved right in and enjoy having BIG windows from which to bird watch. Ninja was very angry with her siblings for quite some time (week or so) because she blamed them for the moving indignity, never mind that it was ME who shoved her in the crate, tortured her with airline security, and wouldn't let her out of her bag for 12 hours on the plane... nope, it was Pumpkin and Pixie's fault! (I really should do a post on that whole adventure :) !)
The tortillas were delicious. The kitties weren't interested, but the family devoured the ones I made... I didn't have enough leftover to test how well they keep as leftovers!

Brooke S. said...

Cheers for your new post! I wish you all the best and look forward to hearing all about it.

Connie said...

Thanks Brooke!