When making tortillas I always elicit some help so that while I am rolling out the dough, someone else is cooking the tortillas.
Flour tortillas are traditionally made with lard. Although you can substitute with cooking oil, the taste will not be the same. I substitute when I am having vegetarians for dinner, but I always make myself a few lard ones as well, and tuck them down the bottom of the pile.
Makes 16 six inch tortillas
3
cups flour6
tbsp lard (pork or beef)1
tsp salt3/4
to 1 cup water
Place the flour and salt in a bowl and rub the lard into the flour until only small lumps remain.
The flour, lard and salt has been rubbed together leaving a few lumps behind
Add the water and mix until it forms a shaggy ball of dough. Knead the dough for a minute or so until it is smooth. Roll into a log about one foot long and cut into 16 pieces. Working one at a time, roll each piece of dough between your palms until you have a ball.
The balls of flour tortilla dough. I am making a half batch today, hence 8, rather than 16 balls
With the palm of your hand, flatten each dough ball it into a circle about two inches across. Flattening them like this will make it easy to get a nice shape when you roll them out. The dough can be set aside and covered at this point until you are ready to continue.
When you are almost ready to eat, start cooking the tortillas.
Place a disk of dough on a floured bench and with a rolling pin, roll it out into a tortilla about 1/8 inch thick. It should be about six inches across when you are done.
One flour tortilla rolled out and ready to cook
Heat a skillet or frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add a tortilla and cook for one minute. The tortilla will puff up a little with air bubbles. This is good. When it is just starting to turn slightly brown in places, flip the tortilla and cook for an additional 30 seconds on the other side.
The tortilla has been flipped and is puffing up nicely
Remove from heat and wrap in a cloth napkin. Repeat with remaining tortillas, creating a stack of them under the towel as you go. Serve at once. If you need to keep them warm a little longer, place the stack, cloth napkin and all in an oven set at 200°F.
Place the stack of tortillas wrapped in the cloth napkin on a plate and put on the table. The napkin will help to keep the tortillas warm and soft throughout the meal.
To get nice circular tortillas place your rolling pin across the center of the flattened tortilla dough. Roll back and forth a few times. Rotate the tortilla about 45 degrees and roll again in the center. Keep rotating the tortilla and rolling in the center and you will get nice circular tortillas.
While cooking, some flour dust from the cooking tortillas may start to build up in the pan. It helps to wipe this away with a folded wad of paper towel every few tortillas so that it doesn't blacken and coat the cooking tortillas.