Arizona Chiltepin Salsa

Tortillas on the comal 27 recipes

• It puffs. On the second turn the tortilla lifts into a dome as the trapped water flashes to steam and splits the two faces apart; a tortilla that never puffs was pressed too thick, cooked too cool, or turned too often.
• Freckled, not blackened: small brown spots across a pale field. An evenly browned tortilla has been on too long and will be a cracker by the time it reaches the table.
• It folds without cracking while warm, and still folds after five minutes under a cloth. A tortilla that splits along the fold has lost too much water on the comal.
• The edges are unbroken and roughly round, with no ragged fringe: a fringed edge means the masa was too dry when it was pressed, and no amount of heat will fix it afterwards.
• It smells of toasted corn rather than of scorch or of raw lime. Raw lime means the nixtamal was under-rinsed; scorch means the comal was above the working heat.

Where it goes wrong The masa was too dry or the comal too cool. A dry masa cracks at the edge on pressing and cannot generate the steam that puffs it; a cool comal dries the tortilla through before the water can flash, so it leaves the heat stiff, pale and already stale.

The overnight rest: letting a dish marry 29 recipes

• Cooled quickly before it went in (spread out, decanted, or stood in cold water) rather than carried to the fridge hot in the pot it was cooked in.
• Protected from the rest of the fridge once cold: covered, or given space where nothing strong is sitting beside it. A rest this long is long enough to take on whatever it shares the shelf with, and some dishes want the open air.
• Given the whole time. This is the one technique whose entire content is waiting, and cutting it short leaves the dish exactly as it was when it went in.
• Brought back deliberately: reheated gently, or brought up to the temperature it is meant to be eaten at, rather than served straight out of the cold because it is late.
• Tasted and corrected AFTER the rest. Seasoning and brightness both flatten in the cold, so the dish is finished at the end of the wait rather than at the start of it.

Where it goes wrong It went into the fridge hot and covered. It held its own heat for hours in the range where food spoils, and the lid sweated and dripped back into it all night: what comes out is duller and wetter than what went in, which is the exact opposite of the point.