Belize Corn Tortillas

Recently the Anderson, Cole, Warner family took a winter vacation to Belize; to escape the cold weather and get a little beach action. While I had imagined teal blue water, tropical fish and lounging in the sun, I didn't anticipate how delicious the food would be.

One of our best meals, was in an unexpected location. We had just toured the Xanuntunich ruins and part of the tour was lunch. We pulled up to a rather suspect-looking outdoor restaurant, where clearly all the tours dumped their guests after seeing the ruins. In my experience when you are with a tour group, the food is never the best thing about the day. Me, only slightly fearing getting food poisoning on the 3 hour drive back to our beach house, asked our guide for a recommendation.

He suggested a dish called "pibil". None of us had heard of it, but the way our guide explained it, it sounded very similar to midwestern pit smoking. So feeling adventurous we all ordered "pibil". The dish consisted of very tender pork smoked underground for a long period of time. It came with fresh guacamole and the most delicious corn tortillas I have ever had. I didn't know corn tortillas could taste so good. So once home and inspired by this meal, I decided it was worth trying to make my own.

While they didn't turn out as pretty and were a little more work then expected, I would say with a little practise they could worth the effort.

Ingredients 2 cups masa harina 1.5 cups hot water 1/2 teaspoon sea salt Instructions

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix salt and masa harina together.

2. Pour 1.5 cups of hot water into the dough and mix with a spoon or your hand to form a big ball. The dough should be firm and springy when touched, not dry or super sticky. If the mixture is too dry and it needs some more water, add it in small amounts until dough is the right consistency.

3. Cover the bowl with a cloth napkin and let the dough rest for about an hour.

4. Preheat a griddle or large frying pan on medium-high heat. 5. Pinch off a golf-ball sized piece of masa harina and form it into a ball by rolling it in a circular motion in the palm of your hand.

6. Put the masa ball in between two pieces of plastic wrap, parchment or wax paper and flatten it using the tortilla press, or roll out with a rolling pin

7. Gently remove the flattened masa from the plastic wrap and cook on the hot griddle for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, depending on how hot the surface of the griddle is. You want the tortilla to have beautiful brown marks.

8. Flip the tortilla over and cook on the other side for 30 seconds to about 1 minute. The tortilla may start to puff up in the middle, That's okay! 9. Remove the tortilla and place it between a cloth napkin or a tortilla warmer to keep it warm.

10. Repeat steps 5-9 until all the dough is gone

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