By Ed Avis
The humble tortilla—that cheerful circle that plays a key role in the background of nearly every Mexican/Latin meal—is finally in the spotlight. There are so many innovations in tortillas today that every restaurant owner should be able to find some way to elevate the tortilla from supporting player to lead actor.
The opportunities for upping your tortilla game come in several categories. Many restaurant owners and chefs have realized that making their own tortillas, despite the extra work involved, pays off in flavor, aroma and spectacle. And making tortillas in-house opens the door to trying interesting ingredients, ranging from unusual grain varieties to colorful spices to interesting vegetable purees.
But restaurants without the room, time or labor capacity to make their own tortillas are not being left out. Dozens of suppliers across the U.S. now offer pre-made tortillas in an array of colors, flavors and textures that were unimaginable a decade ago.
The excitement surrounding tortillas today is enveloping both corn and flour tortillas. Both types can be improved with atypical grains and other ingredients, and both can be made in-house. So whether you are serving gourmet tacos on blue corn tortillas or Tex-Mex burritos wrapped in flour tortillas, you can pump up your profits by tapping into on-trend tortillas.
The Make-Your-Own Option
One of the most dramatic trends in recent years is the growing number of Mexican restaurants making tortillas in-house. Data collected by el Restaurante magazine suggests that as many as 25 percent of independent and small multi-unit Mexican restaurants make their own tortillas.
Why do they do it? Primarily to set themselves apart from competitors by adding a home-made element to a staple that has long come out of a plastic bag.
“Freshly cooked, homemade tortillas take me back to my childhood with strong memories of my mom making them from scratch,” says Luis Flores, chef of Uno Dos Tacos in San Francisco, who makes a fresh batch of blue corn tortillas using locally sourced masa every morning. “We think that it is worth the effort for both taste and quality.”
Making corn tortillas from prepared masa—either sourced from a local tortilleria or made in-house using a mix—is often the first step into the world of house-made tortillas. Restaurants in large communities with a decent-sized Hispanic population can often find local tortillerias that sell masa, which ensures that the essential ingredient is fresh.
Chefs who want to dive even deeper into fresh corn tortilla production start with raw corn rather than masa. Corn grown specifically for tortillas is available from U.S. farms (Rovey Seed Co., for example, sources its tortilla corn from American farms), or from Mexican growers. Restaurants that make tortillas from raw corn start by nixtamalizing the corn, a process in which corn is soaked in tanks filled with an alkaline solution to soften and loosen the hulls of the kernels. The nixtamalized corn is then ground into masa, normally by a machine such as a motorized molino.
Xico Restaurant in Portland, Ore., for example, nixtamalizes and grinds corn for their masa.
“Masa is the backbone of Xico. This process is so important to the food and communities of Mexico & to us,” according to a video on Xico’s Instagram page (@xicopdx), which shows the molino in action.
Once the masa is prepared, restaurants can make tortillas by hand—either by using the familiar wooden or cast iron tortilla press, or with a table-top corn tortilla machine like one offered by Tortilla Masters.
Many restaurants also use make tortillas with wheat flour, which is available from suppliers including Grain Craft, Ardent Mills, Minom—and the number of varieties is growing, too.
The equipment for making wheat flour tortillas is different from that for corn tortillas. The characteristics of dough made from wheat flour differ enough from corn masa that the technology needed to make tortillas of each type differs as well. Several companies manufacture restaurant-sized wheat flour tortilla equipment, including BE&SCO, X-Press Manufacturing, Dutchess Bakers Machinery and Super Tortilla Machines.
Innovations with Corn
Corn tortillas are the dominant type in most parts of Mexico, and U.S. restaurants offering a high level of Mexican or other Latin cuisine make sure their corn tortillas are top quality. These days they can tap into a number of innovations to make their corn tortillas stand out.
For many restaurants, the plain white corn tortillas aren’t interesting enough—they want color. For example, Chef Flores says Uno Dos Tacos uses masa made from 100 percent organic blue corn in their tortillas. Colored tortillas—blue and red are the most common—are enticing to customers and help a restaurant stand out.
“There are all kinds of different color corn out there,” notes Derek Rovey, president of Rovey Seed Co. “Even within a blue corn variety, they’re not all the same. We’ve learned over the years the color of different blue corn may look similar at first, but when you grind the kernels, the masa can be a lot different. It can range from a dark blue to a gray color.”
If you’re buying pre-made corn tortillas and want color and authenticity, make sure your supplier is creating the color by using colored corn, not by adding food coloring to the masa.
Another trend in corn tortillas is the use of “land-raced” corn, which is heirloom corn grown by small farmers in Mexico. A number of fine dining Mexican restaurants in the United States, such as Topolobampo in Chicago and Cosme in Manhatten, feature land-raced corn in their tortillas.
Masienda, a U.S.-based company, imports land-raced corn in eight varieties. Jorge Gaviria, president of Masienda, explains that the different varieties of heirloom corn offer different experiences for the diner.
“The environment informs the corn, and that informs the taste and texture of the final product,” he says. “So if you have something grown in one elevation and temperature it will have different characteristics than something grown in a sea level environment. And that will impact the tortilla.”
“Sprouted grains” are also trending in the tortilla category. These are grain kernels including corn, sorghum and millet that have been soaked and allowed to sprout—a process that activates enzymes in the grain that begin breaking down the starch, making the nutrients more accessible and digestible.
“Sprouted grains have great nutritional properties, vitamins and improved flavor,” says James Curry, president of International Food Systems, a company in New Braunfels, Texas that produces sprouted grains. “Chinese doctors used them to treat health conditions and the original inhabitants of Mexico used them.”
Sprouted corn flour, which is not from nixtamalized corn, can be added to masa to create a blend of up to 16 percent sprouted corn flour, Curry says. In addition to the nutritional benefits, sprouting converts some of the corn’s start to maltose, enhancing the flavor, he adds.
Tito’s Burritos & Wings in New Jersey and Velvet Taco, which has locations across many states, have incorporated sprouted grains in their tortillas, Curry reports. “We … use organic sprouted grains in our corn masa blend, which improves the flavor, healthiness and nutrient absorption,” says information at titosburritos.com.
Working with Wheat Flour
If your restaurant uses primarily wheat flour tortillas, either pre-made or made in-house, you can still jump on the better tortilla bandwagon.
Wheat flour tortillas are usually made with bleached white flour. There’s nothing wrong with that, and a quality tortilla made with that flour will satisfy nearly every customer. But if you’re looking for something a little different, you might want to try whole grain flour. For example, White Sonora Wheat flour from the Annex division of Ardent Mills uses an heirloom wheat with a buttery yellow color and sweet flavor that creates tortillas with a nutty texture and a slightly sweet flavor.
Flour tortillas with specialty additives such as vegetables, herbs or spices also can enliven your customers’ dining experience. The list of potential additives is endless. Spinach and sun-dried tomato are the most common, but today you can find tortillas with garlic, cinnamon, cashew flour, cilantro, basil, jalapeno, chipotle and many other flavors.
If you’re making your own flour tortillas, you can experiment by adding whatever flavor you think would enhance a particular dish. And if you buy premade tortillas, don’t just re-order your basic flour tortilla the next time—take a minute to see what else your supplier makes and decide if it’s worth the extra cost.
Tortilla innovation, of course, comes with a cost. If you’re making your own tortillas you need to invest in equipment and labor; and if you’re buying premade tortillas beyond the basics, you will pay more.
But if your customer base is discerning, and you want to set yourself apart from the competition, you may find it financially worthwhile to up your tortilla game.
Ed Avis is the publisher of el Restaurante.