Talking Tortillas, with Pati Jinich

Episode Transcript

- This episode is sponsored by Brod & Taylor, helping more people bake bread, gather around the table, and share something made by hand. I'll chop up...

- Refrig...

- Okay. What?

- The face you're making right now. From King Arthur Baking Company, this is "Things Bakers Know". I'm Jessica Battilana, King Arthur's staff editor.

- And I'm David Tamarkin, King Arthur's editorial director. And today we're talking about tortillas.

- Tortillas, you know, I think I often share weird stories with you and today will be no exception. Because one of the things that I like to do when I travel is pick up specialty food from whatever destination I'm visiting.

- From the airports.

- From the airport you shop.

- Yes. Duty free.

- Well, what I also do is that I will like pack clothes that I want to throw out. Like, I'll pack like old t-shirts and I'll wear them during the trip and then I throw them out to make room in my suitcase for something I wanna bring back.

- Oh my gosh. Okay

- So I always look very shabby when I'm traveling.

- Now I understand why so many people look the way they do at airplanes.

- And then discard them at the end of the trip

- To make room for...

- To make room for some sort of food stuff that I'm bringing back. Like I went to San Francisco, I wanted to get the special rice from my friend who's a Japanese chef out there. So I packed a bunch of old t-shirts, threw them out, brought several gallon bags of rice. But recently, you know, I was in Austin and when I went in Rome, went in Austin, I was like, I'm gonna get tortillas because there's a lot of things you can get in Maine, you know, but great tortillas are not really one of them. And in Austin it's like they're so easy to get and so inexpensive. And so I brought back 200 tortillas.

- Oh my. Did you have any clothes in your bag at this point? Or you just like threw out everything?

- And I brought a mixture of corn tortillas, flour tortillas, some that were mixed corn and flour. Different sizes, different thicknesses.

- Wow.

- And now I have, you know, I've bragged about my chest freezer before. And I'll continue to brag about that freezer till the day that I die.

- It's full of tortillas now.

- It's full of tortillas now.

- Wow. Gosh, that is great. I mean, so it is true, one of the things I think about most when I think about tortillas is how hard it is to get a good one in New England. You know, even in New York City, I mean, you were in Texas, which of course has an amazing culture for Mexican food and tortillas, you know, a Latin American food. I spent a lot of time in Chicago, lived there for 10 years. There's a huge Mexican population there. And there were so many tortillerias in, you know, in the city of Chicago making fresh masa every day and making tortillas. You grab them, warm. I mean, so this is the thing. You would go to the grocery stores and you probably still can, I haven't lived in Chicago for a few years, but you would grab stacks of tortillas from the grocery store and you had your pick of so many brands that were freshly made that day and they were still warm.

- Still warm.

- I mean, and that is a, that is a gift.

- Yeah. It is.

- A bag of warm tortillas, as you know 'cause you smuggled them from Texas back to Maine. There are very few things that are as delicious as a fresh tortilla made with good masa.

- Yes, and I think, you know, I have always loved tortilla, well, I won't say always. 'Cause I grew up in Vermont, so, and it was like Vermont in the, now you can get packed tortillas here, but you know, they were never great. And it wasn't until I moved to California, to San Francisco and I was within walking distance of La Palma, which is a, what do they call it? A Mexicatessan. And they make both corn and flour tortillas there. And I think that's like, you know, it was sort of like, that was the, I mean, not the light bulb moment exactly, but that was where I started to really appreciate like, oh, it's not a monolith. Like there are like, you know, there's huge difference between corn and flour. And even within that there are differences with ones made with fresh masa or masa harina, you know, flour tortillas with lard or with, you know, oil. So the scales fell from my eyes.

- That's beautiful. That's a beautiful story. Yeah, one of the most interesting tortillas that we have on our site is a red tortilla made with chilies to make it red. I mean, so there is, it's not only just corn or wheat, but also like, what else are you gonna put in that tortilla, right? And I feel like we've been seeing a trend for a few years now of people doing some really cool stuff with tortillas, you know? Mixing in things to make your beautiful colors, pressing flowers, edible flowers, with tortillas. There's so much that that's happening with tortillas. But today I think we're gonna keep it pretty basic.

- I think first we should go back to the beginning of time. I mean, not really, but we should talk about the origins of tortillas because they have deep, deep, deep, deep roots.

- Yes. And this is particular to corn tortillas, what we're about to talk about. But we're going back to 2000 BC. So the Aztec, Mayan and Mesoamerican peoples, you know, who inhabited what is, you know, now Mexico and Central America. it was a corn culture. You know, corn was sort of a god that to be prayed to, but also a crop. It was a thing that sustained them because corn was...

- King.

- Was everything.

- I mean, and it was these civilizations, you know, around a thousand BC that sort of figured out something that kind of like changed. I mean, I don't think it's overstating to say like it changed the course of civilization.

- No, what you're about to talk about I do think is the important things that ever happened to civilization.

- Yes, I think so. So they discovered that if you took dried, you know, dried on the corn, no, dried on the cob kernels of corn. And they cooked them in water that they had mixed some ash from cooking into the water that made the water sort of alkaline. And that alkaline water softened the corn. And so then you're able to like peel off what's called the pericarp, the outer layer and access the nutritional powerhouse beneath. So very rich in vitamins, you know, rich in niacin, calcium. And also once you had the pericarp off, and this is like we're getting to the tortilla part, like then you could grind this into something that was like a smooth paste. And then tortillas were born.

- The process is now called nixtamalization. And you're right, it's an incredible thing. It made corn so nutritious. I mean, and without it, I think you would just have like starchy sugar, sugary starch, you know, basically without any the nutrients. And so it's not something that could sustain people for thousands of thousands of years. Whereas nixtamalized corn can and did. And so it's a very cool thing. And that same process is happening.

- Well that's it. It hasn't changed that much, which is sort of the amazing part. Like, I mean, of course the production of tortillas has become more industrial, but the basic, you know, process remains the same. Like now, instead of ash from your cooking fire, they're using calcium hydroxide or slaked lime in the water. But otherwise it's still like you cook the corn in this alkaline water, you know, then the pericarp is removed and then it's ground. And obviously, yes, it's automated. It's not done with like, you know, a grinding stone anymore, but still, like the fundamental of it is the same. So corn tortillas came first.

- Yes. Well, actually what came first, and I think what what we should be clear about is what you have once you go through that process of nixtamalization and grinding is not a tortilla. You have masa, which is the dough.

- Right.

- Which you can use to make a bunch of different things. Perhaps the best thing is a tortilla, but a corn tortilla.

- Well, perhaps the easiest thing too, if you didn't have, you know, a lot of extra ingredients, if you didn't have a lot of tools, like the idea of making basically like a pancake out of this dough and cooking it, you know, on a griddle, pretty straightforward.

- Yeah.

- So corn tortillas preceded flour tortillas by like, you know, I don't know, 500 years or so. But then, you know, Spanish colonizers, we all know how this story goes, but the Spanish colonizers arrive to, you know, present day Mexico, central America, and they see that this entire civilization is built around corn. I mean, and I think it's interesting because we think about the symbolic importance of corn to, you know, the Maya and Mesoamerican people. I mean, and for the Spanish colonizers, like they had a similar relationship to wheat, like, you know, and, and they sort of believed that like, you know, well the body of Christ was not a corn tortilla, right? Like it was a piece of bread. And so was really important to those cultures. So they get to Mexico, Central America and they think, great, we're gonna plant wheat. And they did. And in many parts of Mexico and Central America, the wheat crop did great. And then they used their traditional methods of, you know, milled into flour and made these flour tortillas. And I think it's interesting, like, I always think about convergence on our culinary planet, right? Like, flour tortillas are very similar to many of the like, flatbreads that you see, the unleavened flatbreads that you see throughout, you know, Eastern Europe. And so yeah, they got a foothold in Mexico and it remains that way today. There are parts of Mexico that are still sort of flour tortilla strongholds. And I love a flour tortilla. But I do wanna talk now because I think we've arrived at the moment where it is interesting to talk about the difference between a store-bought, shelf-stable corn or flour tortilla and the homemade you know, bakery made fresh made, fresh made.

- Yeah.

- Different.

- I mean, I think, you know, when you make tortillas at home, you understand pretty quickly that they don't last a long time or, you know, they're not a flatbread that's meant to last for a few days. So that's, it's interesting to keep that in mind when you're thinking about, you know, the tortillas, I buy these things sometimes. It's a convenience food and I buy them, you know, I live in a neighborhood in Manhattan, you know, where there are a lot of tortillas around, but they just have additives and they have things in them to preserve them. And they are not as fragrant as, you know, fresh made tortilla is. I mean, one of my favorite smells in the world is opening a bag of masa. Because I'm usually working with masa, not fresh masa. Like, I've had fresh masa or just... You can't see me, some of you can't, but I'm like, you know, pressing a tortilla into my face to smell it. I mean, the smell of that fresh corn. So enticing to me.

- And they're like pliant too. Yes, a fresh corn tortilla. Like, you know, if you get a store bought stack of corn tortillas and you go to like fold one in half, like it's gonna crack unless you, like, steam it in the microwave or something. Like it's just, they dry out so quickly. Whereas like a freshly made one is like supple. You know, it's like...

- The test of a good tortilla is, a fresh tortilla that's been made well, is that you hold it in your hand, you should be able to crumple it up and then unfurl it and it should remain intact.

- Oh wow.

- That is a test of a good tortilla. Freshly made tortilla.

- Freshly made corn tortilla.

- And you're right, the ones in the grocery store will crap because they've, you know, probably not that fresh. And they're old, they've dried out a little bit.

- Yeah.

- Another great tip that I was recently reminded of by Lucas Volgar, who of course is a friend of the brand, a great food writer, he runs the Substack, family friend, is to heat the tortillas up in a skillet that's just very lightly slick with oil, really helps. You know, I think it helps hydrate the tortilla a little bit. You know, keeps that pan, you know, nonstick. Keeps those tortillas flipping and frying. It's a very good, another good way to do it.

- Nice.

- So it's not impossible. I mean, and like I said, I do this a lot because I feel lazy. I don't wanna make my own tortillas. But you have to, the store bought tortillas not as good by any means as handmade tortilla. And you have to revive them. You can't just use 'em right out of the pack.

- We have great tortilla recipes on our site. We have flour tortilla recipes, we have corn tortilla recipes. We have a 50-50, which are terrific. They're half wheat, half corn.

- And that's a good, like entryway, I think if you wanna get into corn tortillas, they make it, it's a much easier corn tortilla, you know?

- But, so anyway, we'll put all of those recipes in the show notes as part of our agenda to get everyone making homemade tortillas by the end of this episode. So go look at the show notes now, gather your ingredients and then you can get ready while we talk to our guest.

- Right. Who is gonna help us make good tortillas at home. Pati Jinich is truly one of my favorite people on the planet. She is such an amazing cook and such a, I mean, she's such a joyful personality. I just, I love talking to her. And of course she's a cookbook author too. So we're bringing Pati on. She's done a lot of work with us here at King Arthur, and she's going to get all of us in tortilla making.

- Awesome. I can't wait to hear.

- Pati Jinich is one of the foremost authorities on Mexican food. She's the author of several books, including "Treasures of the Mexican Table", "Mexican Today", and a cookbook that's about to come out this fall, "Foods of La Frontera", go pre-order that now. And of course, she's the host and producer of several PBS series, including "Pati's Mexican Table" in its 15th season, which is amazing. And "Panamericana." How do I do pronouncing that? Not too good.

- That sounded beautiful.

- Yeah, well, she's also very sweet person and a long time friend of King Arthur and Pati, I am so thrilled to have you on the podcast. I love talking to you and I'm so excited to talk about tortillas.

- Aw, thank you so much David. And I love how you said Panamericana.

- We wanted to bring you on to talk about tortillas. I mean to me, I don't know if you agree, but it is, in my opinion, the most elemental and essential of foods of Mexican food, but of of lots of, you know, cuisines, South and Central America. And I wanted to start by asking you, if you remember by any chance, making your first tortilla or if you have any memories, early memories of tortillas?

- Yes, of course. You know, growing up in Mexico City, and having tortillas around was just like having a light, you know, having a light around. Every neighborhood has its, not one but few tortillas. And we would go every week and get fresh. It was corn tortillas, like freshly made corn tortillas. And the biggest treat David, was when you went there and they were coming out hot of the giant machine, you would ask for a couple of dozen and then they would give you an extra one. And they had there in the counter, and that was the case in every tortilla. They had salt in a bag. And so you could make a taquito de nada, which translates to a 'taco of nothing' or 'a nothing taco', which is in my mind, you know, after considering a ripe avocado slice inside of a corn tortilla, the most delicious thing. It is just fresh corn tortilla, earthy, nutty, super-soft, malleable with just a sprinkle of salt. And if they happen to have a little stick of butter, then that was like, oh my gosh. You know, the most amazing thing.

- You're bringing up so many things about the tortilla that I want to talk about. So let's pretend we're talking to a bunch of home cooks and they are getting ready to make tortillas for the first time. You've done a lot of work teaching people how to make tortillas. You developed the tortilla recipe on our site, which we're so grateful for and is a great recipe. I've used it so many times. What would you say, what advice would you give to the home cook who is just starting?

- I would say, well, first of all, I'm so happy that more people wanna try and make their own corn tortillas. And I would say a few things are essential. Like, the first thing is give yourself the time. It's not something that you're gonna make like a sandwich. Like, you have to reserve a block of time to be relaxed. Like you can start making your corn tortillas at 6:15 if you wanna be serving dinner at 6:30. So I would say give yourself the time, get the tools, like get a really good tortilla press and a really good tortilla press isn't an expensive one at all. It just, it has to be, you know, heavy. It has to, it just has to flatten the masa like nothing complicated there. But I would steer away from the fancy big square tortilla presses because they're more cumbersome to use. I like just the basic steel or heavy aluminum round tortilla presses. And it's funny because most of the good tortilla presses are a little bit uneven. You have to jiggle them a little bit when you use them, but that's just part of the process. And then to press the tortillas you need plastic and some people forget about that and will press the masa in the tortilla press, and then the masa sticks to both sides. So you need to remember, and people forget you need plastic on both sides. So you open up the tortilla press, you layer a sheet of plastic, and I like using the plastic from the plastic bags from the grocery store, from the vegetable aisles, that very thin plastic is the best. And just cut circles. And you wanna cut the circle larger than the base of the tortilla press so that you're not messing with it too much. And then you put that...

- I wanna pause you right there, because I love that tip about using the plastic bag from the grocery store. And you would not recommend using plastic wrap, right? Like something like that?

- No, no, no. Because plastic wrap is way too thin and it crumbles and it's gonna mark all those wrinkles in the masa. So the produce bags are the best in between the plastic wrap in say a zip lock bag, which a zip lock bag is not bad. Like I would much rather go for a zip lock bag than plastic wrap. Mix your masa harina with water. I do add a pinch of salt. I never add fat to my masa or masa harina unless if I'm making masa dumplings or sopes or gorditas. But for corn tortillas, you don't need to add any fat at all. And you wanna make sure that you have a pan that's been preheating and you know, over medium-low heat for at least 10 minutes because you want that surface to be very hot and ready for the tortilla. If it's not hot enough, when you lay down the tortilla, the tortilla will stick. Think of pancakes or crêpes, it'll stick and then you'll have to wait until it creates a crust to flip it. And you don't want it to be too hot, or it will burn the tortilla and not cook it from within. And I recommend for people that are starting that they use a very affordable non-stick. Because that's just the easiest thing to start with. Once you have made tortillas a few times, you can go to a comal that's not nonstick or a cast iron pan. I have a lot of friends that use cast iron pans and they love it. And then you have to wait for the masa, once you flatten it out into a tortilla and it has to be very thin, to be a Mexican tortilla, it has to be very thin. If it's thicker, it's good for a pupusa which is not Mexican. I mean it's delicious, but not for tacos. And then you just have to have patience. It's like when you're learning to make crêpes, you know, the first, the second one, the third one are probably not gonna be your best ones, but you just have to continue going at it.

- Yeah. So there are two points over this process where I personally get tripped up sometimes, especially if I haven't done it in a while. So I want to know if you have any tips for me. One is the hydration of the dough. It's important you get that right. And, but we know that we can give people a recipe and people can weigh with grams. But depending on what season it is, depending on what your kitchen's like, depending on what type of masa you're using, you know, these elements change, you know, how the dough's gonna feel. What should I be looking for in the masa? Like how sticky should it be?

- This is such a great question and it has a temperamental answer because it really depends on the weather, not only of where you live. Say if you're in Colorado or you're in Florida, how much humidity there is, the altitude, because that will also, you know, affect the heat and how long you're cooking the tortilla. So what you're, this is very easy, and I know people think it's very complicated, but this is what you're looking for. You are looking for a masa that is soft as fresh play dough. It's, you know, Play-Doh when you first take it out of the little container after you've used Play-Doh a few times and you forgot to put the lid on, then it starts getting crackly and you can play with it as well. And the best test to know if the, and you have to really knead the dough, even though it's just flour and water. And I like to add, you know, hot or warm water, even though it's just mixing that I do like to add a pinch of salt. You have to let the masa hydrate for a little while, for a few minutes. You can't just immediately start making the tortillas because the masa will continue transforming. That is the masa harina will continue absorbing the water and becoming a thing. You know, the masa and the water will become its own thing, not separate units. So you have to give that time. But when you make your balls of dough, and I like to divide the masa from the get go. 'cause you're not gonna like me saying this, but I don't like to weigh my masa, my balls of masa, I just take...

- That's heresy on this podcast.

- But, yes. Okay.

- And I honestly, I don't mind if some tortillas are a little bigger than others. I really don't mind. But what you need is a final texture. And the proof is when you have your ball of masa and you press it in the tortilla or the tortilla press, there should be no cracks on the edges. That's how you know that the masa is moist and wet enough that...

- If there are cracks, it's too dry.

- Yes.

- And then can it be saved? Would you put a little more water in? Okay.

- Yeah, you just get the gather the masa, throw it back in the bowl where you have the masa and add more water and knead it again. Or you could even do it to just that ball of masa. It's always, always salvageable until you cook it. The most important thing to make really good corn tortillas is to cut yourself slack. Give yourself time in the kitchen and to cut yourself slack and be kind and loving and forgiving to yourself. And build that determination and confidence. So it doesn't matter. You're just gonna get better with time.

- Before we end our conversation, I wanted to talk about some of the regional styles of tortillas in Mexico. You've been doing a lot of traveling, you know, for your TV show. It sounds like your new book is about the regional food. Is that right?

- Yes, yes, yes, yes. My next cookbook is called "Foods of La Frontera". It's recipes and new taste frontiers from both sides of the border. And it's, you know, the southern US states and the northern Mexican states. And I realized, David, that we Mexicans know so little about norteño cuisine in culture and one of their pillars is the flour tortilla. And in those northern Mexican states, they use Sonoran wheat, which is extraordinary. But of course you can just find any good wheat to make flour tortillas. But the flour tortillas are so divine, they're like, like thin little biscuits or pancakes. I mean, they're just buttery, they're flaky, they're all kinds, they're like super thin, big ones for burritos. They're normal sized ones for tacos. There are some that are made on special occasions that are used where butter is used for the fat. There's some places in the border where they use beef lard or tallow and they use the beef cracklings. There's some parts where they use pork lard. There's some parts where they use specific kinds of vegetable shortening. There's even some flour tortillas that are called gorditas de harina, not gorditas de maíz. It's like gorditas de harina, which are just chubbier flour tortillas that are made with butter and evaporated milk. And I can't even describe the taste.

- What are those used for? Are they eating on their own or are they filled?

- Oh, so yeah, so those are typically used for filling them with refried beans and melted cheese.

- Oh my God, that sounds so good. And they're extraordinary. They're like little empanadas. They're such a luxury. And you know, the more I travel and the more I do what I do, the more I'm just hoping for more years David, because I realize, I know so little, you know, I used to think, oh, I know so much. I'm from Mexico and you know, no, in Mexico corn tortillas are better than flour tortillas. And then I traveled to like half of Mexico and realized that the rule there is really good flour tortillas and that they're incredible. So I think there's so much to learn.

- I mean, I could talk to you for years honestly about, you know, listening to you talk about this stuff. 'cause it just is all so fascinating. And I just think Mexican cuisine is the richest cuisine. I'm gonna go ahead and say, and for me, I just think there's so much to explore and so much delicious, so many delicious things, including all the tortillas. It's so wonderful to talk to you. I wish I could talk to you forever, but I know our editors are gonna kill us.

- Goodbye. This is so sad. But we can get to this again anytime.

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- Right. It's time for our next segment, "Ask the Bakers". For Ask the Bakers, we want to hear from you if you have a baking question from us. And who better to ask, really? Head to kingarthurbaking.com/podcast to record a voice message. We may end up using it on the show. That's kingarthurbaking.com/podcast.

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- [Caller] Hi, this is Sue calling from North Carolina. My question is, I want to make tortillas, but what do I do if I don't have a tortilla press?

- Well first of all, I'm glad that our tortilla messaging is getting through to this caller. She really wants to make tortillas at home.

- Yeah. And we haven't talked about tortilla presses yet. And actually it's an important thing to talk about because there is a wide range of them out there in the market. And I have fallen prey to the cheap tortilla press, which is light and plastic.

- Oh no, I don't have a plastic one. I have a metal one. I didn't know they made plastic ones.

- It's, you know, it's not great. You know, to get a light one to get a, you don't wanna, I don't think you need to buy an expensive tortilla press, but you wanna get one with some heft to it, first of all.

- Yes. Okay.

- Assuming that you wanna make tortillas now and you don't have a tortilla press.

- And I'll say a tortilla press is sort of a single use appliance. And sometimes you just like can't, you know, can't make the space for a single or you're, you know, you're an occasional tortilla maker and so you perhaps haven't leveled up to justifying the purchase of a tortilla press. But that's okay. I mean, if you wanna, and obviously this caller wants to make corn tortillas. 'Cause if they wanted to make flour tortillas, they would just see a rolling pin. But you have a hack for...

- Yeah, if you're just getting into it and you don't wanna buy a tortilla press yet, you gotta get those sheets of plastic. Those are nonnegotiable. But I would, you know, set a piece of plastic on the countertop, put your ball of masa on top, plastic on top of that. And then I would use the heaviest skillet you have. So I would use a cast iron skillet and I would not slam it down. I would, you know, you press gently and this is something else we haven't talked about that one of the other nuances of tortillas at home is the pressure. What we did talk about a little bit, you know, like if you press it too much or, you know, you press too much with this cast iron skillet, you are gonna get something way too thin. And way too stuck to the pan. And if you don't do it enough, it'll be too thick. So anyway, you know, experiment with that. But you can get a pretty nice even press with a cast iron.

- With a large skillet. Well let's go to our next question.

- [Caller] How do I get my tortillas to puff.

- Practice.

- Practice. Practice makes better. And again, I think this is a question really for, I mean, flour tortillas, I don't think you have to work so hard to puff. Like they just kind of do. Corn tortillas though, and it's interesting like people think about a puffing corn tortilla as a hallmark of a good tortilla.

- Yeah. Right. I think and I think it is tech. I mean, you know, when you see people who really know how to make tortillas or like you're at a restaurant or a tortilla real, I mean those things are puffing. And they're like, it's a beautiful thing to watch. You know, they do it and it seems so easy and it's not. Sometimes your tortilla does not puff.

- 'Cause they have no leavener in them.

- They have no leavener,

- So it's technique and temperature

- And, yeah, and it's, you know, steam. So is your hydration right. You know, and your dough, it's all sorts of factors. One thing you can do if your tortilla is cooking and it's not puffing and you really want it to puff and this is good. I do this all the time, you know, I always wanna give it a chance, right? Take a spatula and gently press on the tortilla, press it down into the hot skillet, maybe flip it, you know, do that again. That pressing motion, which works with a lot of things.

- A lot of flatbreads.

- Yeah. A lot of flatbreads. Does encourage puffing and sometimes that that works. You get a beautiful puff then and then it settles down. You don't have a lot of time when you're making tortillas, they don't cook very long.

- 'Cause you're griddling them pretty high heat.

- Yeah. I'd say it's like 90 seconds, you know, it's about the average time. And so I wouldn't keep your tortilla on the skillet and pressing it to try to get it to puff, you know?

- Yeah, because then it'll dry out. Yeah.

- Just move on.

- Yeah. I mean, and the nice thing is even a non-puffed corn tortilla still very delicious. Like it might not be like, you know, Pati-style, you know, it might not be like restaurant-style, but it'll eat as we used to say growing up. It'll eat.

- Yeah.

- So I think, yeah, just you're right. Just it's the getting the reps in. And you know, I think like every time you do something like this, like you learn a little bit about like, oh, maybe I should have added a little bit more water and you know, there's gonna be variability between fresh masa and you know, reconstituted masa harina. So, you know, I wish there was a magic, you know, a magic tip. But it is really practice.

- Yeah. It's practice and not something to worry about.

- Yeah. I think we have one more tortilla question.

- [Caller] Hi, my name's Lauren. I'm calling in from Virginia. My question is, I have a tortilla recipe that calls for lard and I'm wondering do I need lard or can I use something else? And how does your choice of fat make a difference in flour tortillas? Thanks.

- You do not need to use lard. I mean it's really just a question of flavor. And some people find the flavor of lard to be off-putting, you know, or if you're a vegetarian and you just don't want to use lard, that's fine. Also, I think it is a sad fact that a lot of like the commodity lard that you get like the blocks of, you know, it's like sold in a brick, like butter, is not very delicious, anyway. So you can use, when we were working on the Big Book of Bread, we tried lots of different fats knowing that some people wouldn't be able to get lard or wouldn't wanna use lard for whatever reason. And we experimented with butter in tortillas, we experimented with coconut oil, you know, like the solid coconut oil. We experimented with like other neutral oils and they all work. So that's like functionally there's really no difference. So it's really just a question of flavor. So you can definitely sub something else out and you know, it'll be great. I do like lard and like if you can get good lard, a lard tortilla I think is delicious. But you know, it's nice to know that you can sub something else and it'll be just fine and you substitute the same amount by, you know, weight or volume.

- Yeah.

- Should be good to go. Anyway, there.

- Fat episode coming soon.

- Oh, we should do a fat episode. Well, now I've told one of my best fat stories. I'll come up with another one.

- Every episode we like to check in with Jessica to see what wildly surprising and full throated opinions are in her head. A segment we lovingly call 'Jess-opinions". I got a preview of what this Jess-opinion is, but I didn't hear the whole thing. And I'm very excited, Jessica, for your tortilla Jess-opinion.

- Yeah, so this is, I mean, I'm zigging a little bit here 'cause it's about burritos.

- Okay.

- Which of course related to tortillas, you know?

- Yeah, you can't have a burrito without one.

- No, you can't.

- I mean, lettuce does not count. Sorry.

- It's not a wrap. I was thinking about my, I mean I love a burrito, until I get to like the last inch of the burrito. Aka the burrito stump. You know where all the tortilla...

- You've already eaten one of the stumps.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Or do you start your burritos in the middle?

- Look

- Yeah, yeah.

- Can you imagine. When you get to the bottom and it's sort of compressed by your hand and the weight of the burrito ingredients and you have that sort of like, kind of dense layer upon layer of tortilla and you know, tortilla butt. Stump, basically you get to the stump, revolting. I do not like a burrito stump at all. Like, I'll stop eating it there. But our producer was...

- This is not that controversial.

- I don't know. Our producer was like horrified. She said that was her favorite part of the burrito. I just think it's too much tortilla. Like I like to have...

- Well it's a lot of tortilla, it's a lot of naked tortilla.

- It's so much, it's naked but also sort of slimy a little bit.

- Oh God, you're really selling it.

- I know. But I will say there is a way to save the stump. My Yankee thrift coming to bear again is like, I will take the stump home, wrap it up.

- Okay. This is where you're losing me.

- Take it home, refrigerate it. And then the next morning I'll chop up the stump. The face you're making right now.

- What? Just to be clear, we're talking about...

- About bottom inch. A bottom inch.

- An entire inch.

- Yeah, I think so.

- So we're talking about like two grams of tortilla here. Okay, you've taken it home. You've carried it home carefully.

- This is, I know you're...

- Like a wounded bird and you put it in your fridge?

- In my fridge. I know your germ adverse too, so this is probably doubly horrifying for you. But then I take it out of the fridge, chop it, fry it up in a little oil. So those tortilla bits start to crisp. And then I beat some eggs and I pour them on top and I make what we call stump eggs.

- Wow!

- Yeah.

- That's a lot. I mean, you have a family of stumps or is it just one stump because you've all gone to get like burritos or what?

- The rest of my family will eat the stump.

- Please tell me, this is in your cookbook Stump Eggs.

- I should put this in my cookbook. Sadly, no. But this a freebie. This is a bonus recipe.

- Bonus recipe. There you go. We'll put it in the Substack.

- Share something... Substack! It shares something with, I don't know, like maybe it's like a relative of like migas, right?

- Well, I was thinking there's a lot of wonderful things you can do with tortillas and eggs, yeah.

- And you're like, that's not one of them.

- This is adding to the, I wanna say the pantheon, is that the right word?

- Yeah. The pantheon of egg and tortilla things. Well, so I, you know, I don't know, this could be a minority opinion about the stump, but...

- Yeah, I think this is less about your opinion and more about...

- I just wanna give people this free idea.

- Free idea, yeah. Your commitment to thrift is admirable. You know what, I'm sitting here, I'm like, I'm confused and I'm like, I'm like worried about you and like I'm all these you. But then I'm like sitting here realizing, you know, like in my household there is a phrase that my husband uses called the "David piece", which like these little pieces that I keep on of everything that when you use it, it's very stump-like...

- I like how you're acting.

- So I actually think that, I actually am really into this so, yeah.

- It took you a long time to reveal this David piece.

- I know. It's feigning shock.

- Are you gonna use any of your David pieces in your bakes this week? What are you gonna bake?

- Well, I might. All this talk about corn tortillas and masa reminded me that one of my favorite things to do with masa is not a tortilla but tortilla-esque, which is a masa harina pancake. Which we have a great recipe for on the site. It's a mix of AP flour, you know, wheat flour and masa harina. So flavorful. And I just, I love pancakes. And so like a another one to add to a mix. So I will be making masa harina pancakes and, yeah, I'm gonna be chopping up tortilla stumps and putting them in there.

- Do you do them and you eat them like with a sweet topping?

- You know what, I actually really like a pancake just with butter. Is that weird?

- No.

- And I kind of just eat them standing. And I usually make, because I'm making the batch, you know, and then by the time, like they're done, like I've already eaten like three pancakes. And I put the rest in my freezer and I kind of toast them. You know, this is not the first time this season that I've talked about pancakes.

- No.

- You know, so I really like a pancake and I like it as like a quick thing. I can toast. Sometimes I'll dip into maple syrup. I don't usually do a savory though.

- No, it would be good with like a swipe of blueberry jam on it though. 'Cause I think corn, like masa and blueberry is, we have a coffee cake on our site that combines masa and blueberries.

- Oh yeah. Yeah. Actually the recipe on that I'm talking about does include a blueberry sauce.

- Oh yeah. That sounds nice.

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna do, I'm gonna make our Lemon Tiramisu. Which it has been, I've been marketed to by King Arthur and it's working. Because I have been seeing this Lemon Tiramisu and it just seems like, I mean, we've been talking a lot about what you do in this shoulder season. I mean, okay, Californians, if we have any California listeners, this is not for you. Like, you're already eating strawberries and you can keep quiet about it.

- No, we're in full stick season.

- But we're in stick season. We're like, it's no, there's no rhubarb. You're like, what are we gonna do?

- Is this stick season or is this mud season?

- I mean, it's just terrible is what it is.

- It's stick season, whatever.

- Yeah. I mean, it's still bleak. It's still winter, there's still no fresh stuff. But the Lemon Tiramisu gives you like, you know, a sort of like suggestion of brighter days. So it substitutes Limecello where you would use, you know, like for the, instead of an espresso liqueur, it still has the mascarpone layer, it still has the lady fingers and then there's lemon curd in there. It uses a recipe for lemon curd that's made in the microwave, which is a genius recipe, like on its own to just have around. But that looks really delicious and pretty and I think it might just get me through these next few weeks. So I'm gonna try it out.

- Call me.

- Come over, come over and have Tiramisu. Thank you for tuning in and joining us here on "Things Baker's know". We're gonna be back next week, we're talking about croissant.

- Oh, that's good. A bad one for me and my pronunciation.

- I know. I feel like...

- Croissant.

- Croissant. Croi-sandwich. People want to know how to unlock croissants at home and we're gonna help them.

- They sure do.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. Something I've never done, so I will not be very much help next week.

- But as always, we appreciate the listeners listening. We appreciate the callers calling. Keep it up.

- Yep. Remember to please give us a like, give us a subscribe on Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon music, or wherever you listen to podcasts so you know when the next episode drops.

- And leave us a review while you're there. Share the episode with a friend. Tell your friends about us. We wanna hear from you.

- And in the meantime, don't forget, follow the recipe.

- Follow the recipe.

- "Things Baker's Know" is hosted and executive produced by me, David Tamarkin

- And me, Jessica Battilana.

- Rossi Anastopoulo is our senior producer, Chad Chenail is our producer and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala.

- Thanks again to Pati Jinich for appearing on today's episode. You can learn more about her and her work at patijinich.com

- "Things Bakers Know" is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast.