things wot i made then ate: bean dip and tortilla crisps

The most popular corn crisps are marketed as Dorito® chips in the United States. They are segments of ordinary corn tortillas cut as slices of pizza are cut then deep or shallow fried in vegetable oil. They can be made at home easily by buying commercial corn tortillas, always very inexpensive to begin with, cutting, and frying them. But then those tend to puff while frying, depending on the manufacturer, and those tortillas contain extraneous ingredients that suit manufacturing, transportation, and extended shelf-life. Corn tortillas made at home contain two ingredients: masa flour and water.

Masa is raw corn treated with an alkali, the hulls stripped, then rinsed of excess solution. According to McGee, this treatment makes nutrients within the corn much more readily available, plus the addition of calcium. Originally pot ash was the alkali used. It is the secret to corn that the Spanish did not learn from the Amerinds and so did not take with them back to Europe. [Similar to their failure to understand the pollination of the vanilla orchid required a singular particular insect, the Melipona bee. Fortunes were forfeited before finally a slave on one of Caribbean plantations revealed that the plant's flower, which blooms only once and only a few hours at night, can be hand-pollinated. There are several flowers per stem that bloom one at a time usually in sequence so the same plant must be revisited while it is in bloom. This is just one aspect of vanilla production that makes it so incredibly labor-intensive. But I digress.]

The chips and the dip were made in intermingled steps, but the steps will be shown sequentally as if not intermingled. The truth is, the beans were soaked, then the masa hydrated, while the beans cooked, the tortillas were made. The beans were finished, then the tortilla crisps were fried.

I will show these two things as if you have no idea what I am on about, and as if we do not speak each other's language.

Black beans are popular in this area. So are pinto beans. Occasionally Anasazis. Black beans are smaller than ordinary beans and so do not need this typical over night soaking. They can be cooked directly using the two-stage method, or they can be cooked directly from dry using a pressure cooker.

A traditional recipe would call for lard. Alas, I am lard-less. But wait! I do have lard in another form. Bacon is rendered for its fat, but bacon is more of an American thing. Otherwise I would have used butter.

Garlic ↓.

BLAM !

Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop .

Not shown: beans cooking in the pot with spices. Why not show it? Because it's boring, that's why. Plus the pot had the lid on.

Another one of four bowls from Dale, which I treasure ↓. I wonder how he knew I would appreciate handmade bowls this size.

The bit about "for tamales" ↓ threw me off for awhile for I knew not what I was doing. Turns out the bags marked, "for tamales" and "for tortillas" are the same masa harina. I did eventually experiment with both. Sometimes one is slightly more yellow than the other.

But I do not feel bad about being a bit slow on the uptake. One day I was speaking with female hair dresser of Latin descent who said to me, "Harina means corn." This is so risibly wrong it was difficult to stifle laughing outright. I must admit to my need to mentally grope for the tact required to respond, "I believe the word for corn is 'maize,' and I think the word 'harina' might mean 'flour', compared with the word 'polvo,' which possibly means 'dust,' its English cognitive 'pulverized.' But I am not sure." Of course, I was sure, and what I was actually thinking during all that -- can I be honest with you here? -- the reason that conversation was difficult for me is because I was suppressing "You silly twat, must I parse your own language?"

One cup of masa harina, and slightly less than one cup of water. The flour mixes nearly instantly. Almost takes the fun out of it.

Adjust it one way or the other to get the desired hydration. I cannot say because I am doing this in Denver, a near desert. Your harina might already have moisture that mine does not. It should not be too crumbly, nor too mushy. Use the judgement God gave you, and if not that, then the judgement you gained on your own.

One cup flour made 12 little balls. It just came out that way. The tortillas smashed from these little balls turned out to be on the small side. Maybe 10 would have been better. It really does not matter.

I picked up this tortilla smasher at a small neighborhood Mexican store. I debated whether or not I would actually use it. Turns out, I do. They also had another type made of wood.

The plastic was cut from a grocery bag. The plastic is sprayed with Pam®, an aerosol vegetable fat marketed in the U.S.. The plastic is sprayed once at the beginning, not between each tortilla.

Smashed first with the palm of the hand ↑ and then its raggedy edges tidied ↓.

Compressed with the heavy lid and gently smashed with the clamping handle. Then rotated 120° and gently smashed again, rotated 120° a second time and and smashed again. So three smashes per tortilla. Twelve tortillas; thirty-six smashes. This multiple smashing ensures even flatness. Otherwise, you would have a tortilla that is thicker on one edge.

Here's the tricky bit. The plastic peels off more easily when the tortilla is still flat on the smasher. Peel off one side then while it is still stuck to the bottom, flip it over and peel off the other side. Now both sides are loosened from the plastic and the tortilla suddenly submits to cooperation rather than tearing if it were curved in your hand while you did the peeling off of the plastic. You do not want to smash these things without plastic. You'll never get them off in one piece. Trust me, I tried.

Fry them a few seconds on each side, one at a time. Eventually, you become adept at smashing rotating, smashing, rotating, smashing, peeling, flipping, peeling, so that the time required to smash a new tortilla, the previous tortilla is cooked and ready to be stacked.

At this point ↑ the tortillas are perfectly good as they are. They are floppy. They can be torn and their segments bent around a finger and formed into a little spoon to scoop up anything that can be scooped. That would avoid the whole frying in oil thing, if that is a concern. They would be just as good, but then they wouldn't be crisp.