Adventures with Tlayudas

 Ever since I saw this video ...

... I have had a hankering for tlayudas.

    However, I live a long way from Los Angeles and even farther from Oaxaca. There are very few places in Minnesota that work with fresh masa, let alone make large-format corn tortillas.  In fact, burrito-sized corn tortillas are so unusual in the United States that most recipes direct you to substitute a flour tortilla, which is wrong, wrong, wrong.

    Tlayudas at 12"-14" in diameter (30-36 cm) seem to be a cross between a giant quesadilla, a tostada, and a taco, but it's cooked over open flames. It's sometimes described as "Mexican pizza" but the comparison seems too simplistic -- that's like describing avocado toast as a mini pizza.

    Anyway, there's not a lot of guidance about making Tlayudas from scratch, but here's what I know:

• Instead of a ball of masa that is ping-pong ball-sized (as for a regular corn tortilla), you use a ball of corn dough the size of a tennis ball.
• You make it a little thicker than usual (about 3 mm thick)
• You cook it until it's semi-toasted, harder than a soft taco, but softer than a tostada.
• It's cooked over a charcoal fire and flames
• Toppings include a thin layer of asiento (unrefined lard), black bean refried beans, cheese and salsa, but also anything else you might like.

    There seem to be two main ways of serving it: folded over (it's just soft enough to fold), topped with a slab of pounded-thin meat, which is served as a meal for one person, or open-faced, crisped up like a giant tostada, and topped with more goodies, which is most often shared. 

    One: the tortilla. I had to buy an extra-large press, and I found this one on Amazon. Note: it weighs 18 pounds. I'm more interested in this one from Masienda, but it's so big and heavy (40+ pounds) that I wanted to see if I liked tlayudas well enough to invest in one.

    Two: the masa. I've got the setup for nixtamalizing my own corn and starting from fresh masa, but a good masa harina, such as Bob's Red Mill, or Masienda brand, would work fine, as would the old standby Maseca (not the kind for tamales, though), which is available in most grocery stores.

    Three: the asiento.  Yeah, as a vegetarian, that's not happening in my kitchen. I've learned that to adapt meaty recipes, you can't just leave out the meat; you have to replace the flavor with something else.  So I decided to make a mixture of a good olive oil and enough butter to make it solid but soft at room temperature, infused with roasted garlic. Basically, it's a spreadable Mojo de Ajo.

    Four: the smoke.  Masa, particularly after you press it, is delicate, and the bigger the tortilla, the esier it is to munge it up.  You have to be pretty careful with it until it's cooked slightly, which makes it much stronger. So, I'm planning to par-cook the tortillas, just to the blanda stage (blanda is what you call a giant tortilla when it's cooked to be soft like a soft taco) on my griddle or comal, just long enough so it can survive the trip outside to the grill, where I will take it to the tlayuda stage (semi-crisped). That will infuse the giant tortilla with a bit of a smoky flavor.  I'll freeze them, and when I want a tlayuda, I'll take the tortilla out of the freezer, heat it up briefly on my stove, top it, and then serve.

I will keep you informed on how things go.

Bibliography

• Netflix Street Food: Latin America, episode 3: Oaxaca.
• Gaviria, Jorge, Masa, p 209
• Overa, Enrique. Tu Casa Mi Casa, p 26