Our friend, Kristin, gave us some ears of Blue Corn from her garden recently, so I decided to cook up nixtamal and press some tortillas. It was my first time working with quicklime.
The kernels weighed out at a little over half a pound after shelling the ears, so I added them to two quarts of boiling water and a couple tablespoons of pickling lime. After boiling for half an hour, I covered the pot and let the corn soak overnight in the solution.
After rinsing and scrubbing by hand, the cooked nixtamal went into the food processor with 1/4 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of raw sugar and 2 tablespoons of avocado oil. Processed smooth, it was ready for the tortilla press.
Six smallish ears made eight nice tortillas. I considered cutting them into triangles and deep frying into chips, but decided to just load them up with some pintos and salsa. They were very, very good.
There’s something especially satisfying in taking a home grown product through an old fashioned process like this, rather than just mixing up store bought masa, no matter how high the quality. This is definitely something I’ll take the time to do again.