the story of my corn chips

The corn-chip adventure began well. Most YouTube videos about how to make corn tortillas all follow the same rough template: mix about a cup of masa harina (corn flour made from pre-cooked corn, which I have), a half-teaspoon of salt, and 3/4 cup of very hot water. Knead the dough until it's about the consistency of Play-Doh. Let sit covered for about 15-20 minutes to let the masa harina hydrate. Uncover and form the dough into tortillas by any of a number of methods: tortilla press, rolling pin, the bottom of a frying pan, etc.

Here's how all that went for me.

I begin forming dough balls.

Dough balls complete!

My method for making the tortillas was a combination of frying-pan bottom and rolling pin.

The tortillas are jagged and uneven and kind of small.
I should have made bigger balls.

Fry at super-high heat, about 70 seconds per side.

When done, store your still-hot tortillas inside a towel.
Let tortillas steam and soften as they sit in the towel.

My yield was 10 little tortillas. More like tortillitas.

After forming my tortillas, I was about 90% of the way through the process. I knew the next step would be the dangerous one: timing was of the essence. Alas, after cutting the tortillas into wedges and deep-frying the pieces, I never got the timing down right. 

Below, you can see the sad result:

They look nothing like Doritos or Tostitos.

The excellent salsa, though, elevated the chips.

a second dip: once more unto the breach

So I fucked everything up in the final step. The chips actually ended up tasting pretty good, despite their suntan, but there was no way I was going to serve those to my boss and coworkers. Luckily, I've already bought two bags of Tostitos, so there won't be a problem on Thursday. And I've made my queso as well. That, at least, turned out the way I wanted it to. All that's left to do is to buy some lettuce and tomatoes, cut the veggies up, make guacamole with avocados that I hope will be ripe by Wednesday night, containerize everything that needs to be containerized, and tote the whole thing to work.

Chip-making was a learning experience, and I now have more respect for companies that make chips in quantity. They've dialed in the process to a degree of precision that is practically inhuman. Their chips come out light but totally crispy, with bubbled surfaces that tell me there's something else going on in the chip-making assembly-line process than just making corn tortillas and frying them. I'll look around YouTube for one of those How It's Made videos to see and understand the process better.

I do want to try making these tortillas again. In fact, I've ordered a tortilla press to make the process a little easier. After I get good with corn tortillas, I'll move on to flour. As for corn chips... I don't know. I think I need to study the process more before I try that again.

Happy, Charles? You told me so.

Oh, I forgot: I'm making another loaf of my no-knead for Thursday. Just because.