The biggest challenge for our family and a few other’s while living in China has been the food. We’ve gone from asking how will we ever be able to do this, to how can I do this? At first, China and all that it entailed was overwhelming. Now, we’ve adjusted, made adjustments, we make do, or do without. It’s a mind set, it’s simple!
As a Hispanic family the challenges of China had a bit of a different spin to it. For example; corn tortillas, flour tortillas, chorizo, pinto beans, avocados, spices, and so forth, are not products that are easy to come by if at all. We were able to find flour tortillas; but, they were pretty rubbery. Good thing I make my own flour tortillas. Whew! To our amazement and delight, we found a few bags of pinto beans and Masa Harina at a City Shop in Shanghai. Avocados can be found from time to time in a couple of shops.
We’ve been craving enchiladas, tacos using corn tortillas, & taquitos (deep fried rollups with meat). The challenge with these foods is not making it but finding corn tortillas. So, my husband being the wonderful man that he is, got his wheel turning and had a prensa corn tortilla maker made for me. Amazing! The prensa is a bit rough looking but it works! Since the dough never touches (or shouldn’t) the prensa, it’s ok, we can use it and love it.
We experimented yesterday and had great success! The girls were eating the tortillas slathered in butter as they were done cooking. As you can imagine we didn’t have tortillas left over for enchiladas; but, we did have some very happy little girls! Our next challenge is the, “Chorizo”.
The prensa tortilla maker
2 cups masa harina, 1 1/2 cups hot water, & mix
Dough should look like this, add more water as needed.
Dough balls will be sticky to the touch, keep moist until it’s time to press them down.
Keep a wet towel over the dough balls to keep the moisture in.
Press dough balls between 2 pieces of wax or plastic.
Covered dough ball with the 2nd piece of was paper and ready to press.
Press down using a little pressure. The more pressure you apply the thinner the tortillas will be.
Remove the top wax paper, lift the tortilla on the 2nd piece of wax paper & peel the back piece off.
Cook on a hot griddle. Since we can’t find a griddle we’ve been using this fantastic pan from IKEA.
Ready to eat, where’s the butter?
Enjoy!
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