When I started making our homemade tortillas, I didn’t have any lard in the house (post holiday pie baking wiped out my big tub), so olive oil it was, knowing they should be good, but maybe not as good as they could be. Still, they turned out wonderful, as has all the batches I’ve made since. We go through a lot of tortillas, with meals using our pulled pork and refried beans, regular tacos using taco meat, breakfast burritos (ham or bacon, egg, and cheese, with salsa – yum!), and cold wraps with lunch meat, cheese, ranch dressing, and veggies….
Yeah, there’s 6 of us, we go through a lot of tortillas.
Anyway, it was time to make a new batch of tortillas today and we had lard once again, so I went ahead and tried it.
I kind of geeked out by how much better lard it for tortillas, over olive oil.
To start with, it’s maybe slightly less easy to work with, because I didn’t use my counter top mixer to blend the lard it; I did like my pie crusts – by hand. That’s not to say it’s difficult, all you have to do it rub your hands together, add the water, and knead briefly.
After that little bit of work, the differences all went to the positive column. The dough was nicer, easier to work with. It rolled out better – it was stronger but felt softer and finer. They sat nice and behaved, waiting for the pan (I had to make them solo today, so I kept 5 always ready to go in the pan, going back and forth between cooking and rolling). They cooked faster, more evenly, and were softer right out of the pan – and after they’d cooled.
I mean, I already had a cold wrap for lunch. Yum.
I’ve already updated the homemade tortilla recipe page to include instructions for using either fat, but I really do have to recommend lard!
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