Tortillería January 24
Today when I went to buy my tortillas, the machine was off and one of the people who runs it was just arriving with a huge sack-of-potatoes sized ball of dough. The attendant asked me if I would like to purchase the tortillas that were already made from a little earlier or wait for tortillas from the new batch. I chose to wait even though I didn’t know how long it would take. I thought it would be interesting to see how they did it and it turned out that I was right.
First, they started the belts and wheels, including a grinder mounted on the side of the machine. They put some of the dough through this grinder it a few times, adding a tiny bit of water once. Then they lit the gas oven with a sheet of newspaper rolled up to make a long “match.”
Next they began running some of the dough through the wheels that press it into a thin sheet. They had to lay the dough on the wheels and pressing and spreading it so that it would cover the entire wheels and come out as an unbroken sheet. This part took quite a bit of adjusting of the tension between the wheels using a lever. The sheet of dough had to be started over a third wheel that sent it toward the belt leading to the oven. During this process dough was cut off by hand and re-run until the sheet was coming out just right.
Next, The pulled a lever that tightened the round cutter against the dough, cutting out round tortillas. This also took some adjusting and dough was re-run through a few times. Then, suddenly out came some hot tortillas, slowly deflating after they left the heat of the ovens. We bought a kilo of tortillas so hot they burned our hands and soft, steamy, and delicious smelling.
Tortillerías usually have a salt shaker on the counter so you can shake a small amount of salt onto a fresh tortilla, roll it up using fingers and palm, and enjoy it fresh and hot. We enjoyed about three that way!