6 ms·

Mexican food! I've spent the past 3 years learning to recreate good tortillas. I live abroad in Amsterdam and miss it so much after living in California for dec

Mexican food! I've spent the past 3 years learning to recreate good tortillas. I live abroad in Amsterdam and miss it so much after living in California for decades. I even worked in the best Mexican restaurant in Amsterdam for a month just to learn some of the subtle techniques. I'm finally at a place where I can make tacos much better than what I would get here and even back in California. I'm currently working on burritos as the next project.

biztos 4y ago
What's the deal with corn tortillas outside of the US and Mexico? I've found quite good flour tortillas in Central Europe and also in Thailand. But in 25 years of searching I have yet to find a decent, "proper" soft corn tortilla like I can buy in just about any non-fancy grocery store in California. I keep telling myself there must be a shop in Madrid or Barcelona considering the size of the Mexican expat communities, but even there I have not found any so far. What gives?
- yoshyosh 4y ago
  Mostly trouble sourcing the corn from Mexico I believe. https://taiyari.nl/ https://taiyari.nl/ serves most Mexican places in The Netherlands. It's still not as soft as you'd get from a really freshly made one, although they sell the raw masa as well. The best hack I've found is actually cooking the corn tortillas in a bit of oil to soften them up quite a bit. Works great even with older/frozen tortillas. I haven't found good flour tortillas, curious what your source is here!
  - biztos 4y ago
    If you’re in Europe, I would vouch for Nuevo Progresso from Czech Republic but their web site is… not helpful. Don’t think they produce much but you can get their flour tortillas in Budapest at Ázsia Bt. You want the simple, white-label ones. In Thailand, Danitas. Don’t know if they export but they should. They also make tortilla chips that are basically crack, but their corn tortillas are the same dry catastrophe as elsewhere. For corn, I usually wait until I can bring a hundred back from the US every six months or so.
    - yoshyosh 4y ago
      Awesome, appreciate these tips, will be checking those out as I visit those areas :). I learned how to make flour tortillas from scratch since I missed it so much, corn is def harder to come across. Wrote about it here with full recipe and all https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786287#22792647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786287#22792647
tonightstoast 4y ago
Great cooking is so rewarding. And it’s a great way to get people together :) Thanks for sharing

biztos 4y ago

What's the deal with corn tortillas outside of the US and Mexico? I've found quite good flour tortillas in Central Europe and also in Thailand. But in 25 years of searching I have yet to find a decent, "proper" soft corn tortilla like I can buy in just about any non-fancy grocery store in California. I keep telling myself there must be a shop in Madrid or Barcelona considering the size of the Mexican expat communities, but even there I have not found any so far. What gives?

yoshyosh 4y ago
Mostly trouble sourcing the corn from Mexico I believe. https://taiyari.nl/ https://taiyari.nl/ serves most Mexican places in The Netherlands. It's still not as soft as you'd get from a really freshly made one, although they sell the raw masa as well. The best hack I've found is actually cooking the corn tortillas in a bit of oil to soften them up quite a bit. Works great even with older/frozen tortillas. I haven't found good flour tortillas, curious what your source is here!
- biztos 4y ago
  If you’re in Europe, I would vouch for Nuevo Progresso from Czech Republic but their web site is… not helpful. Don’t think they produce much but you can get their flour tortillas in Budapest at Ázsia Bt. You want the simple, white-label ones. In Thailand, Danitas. Don’t know if they export but they should. They also make tortilla chips that are basically crack, but their corn tortillas are the same dry catastrophe as elsewhere. For corn, I usually wait until I can bring a hundred back from the US every six months or so.
  - yoshyosh 4y ago
    Awesome, appreciate these tips, will be checking those out as I visit those areas :). I learned how to make flour tortillas from scratch since I missed it so much, corn is def harder to come across. Wrote about it here with full recipe and all https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786287#22792647 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22786287#22792647

tonightstoast 4y ago

Great cooking is so rewarding. And it’s a great way to get people together :) Thanks for sharing