Home-made Tortillas

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        This week we made Home-made tortillas.  We started by putting all the dry ingredients in a Ziploc bag (flour salt and a little bit of baking soda).  The Ziploc bag prevented a mess.  We mixed the ingredients together and then we added the wet ingredients (water and shortening). Then we kneaded the dough for a while.  You had to mix it until it was not sticky and everything was well blended.  Once it was well kneaded you took it out of the back and "massaged" it more.  You wanted a thin piece of dough.  The best way to get a thin tortilla was to roll the dough up in a ball and then set it on the table.   Then you would hit it until it was somewhat flat.  You would continue making it thinner and thinner.  You wanted the tortilla to be as thin as it can get to cook well.      
       Once its thin enough you can cook it.  To cook it you put a frying pan on the stove and heat it up.  Before we cooked the tortilla we sprayed it with cooking spray so the the tortilla wouldn't stick.  We put the tortilla on  the pan and frequently spun it around.  After we started seeing the tortilla turn brown we flipped it.  When it was done we topped it with cheese and salsa.  I think to make a better tortilla you should make the tortilla really thin.  When it is thick it doesn't cook thoroughly and it ends up being slightly raw and pasty. Also you could try not using a bag. 

The first tortillas discovered goes back to the Mayans in 10,000 B.C.  They were made of native maize and  dried kernel.  They ate alot of maize so they once grounded the maize into a dough called masa.