A rather impoverished celebration down here in Southern Spain. I can't get any of the ingredients; whether it be fresh chillies, Masa Harina or Cilantro, you name it; all the main ingredients and the Spaniards are conspiring against their old colony's mark of not providing me with them. Read on if you want to see what can be done on a shoestring..
I wasn't actually going to say anything about the significance of the day. To be honest, I had to go to Wikipedia and just thought anyone interested could do the same, save me typing it out. But this is what I found, and I was surprised that it was not at all the home-grown Mexican Fiesta I had thought:
Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a holiday held on May 5 that commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín.[2][3] It is celebrated primarily in the state of Puebla and in the United States.[4][5][6][7] While Cinco de Mayo sees limited significance in Mexico itself, the date is observed nationwide mostly in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.[8] "Cinco de Mayo is not a Mexican holiday—it is an American Civil War holiday, created spontaneously by Mexicans and Latinos living in California who supported the fragile cause of defending freedom and democracy during the first years of that bloody war between the states."[9] Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day,[10] the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico.
So it's basically an American celebration after all so anything goes on the cooking front, I don't have to be too authentic, so here goes..
So, not having the masa harina (a mexican corn flour treated with lime) to make corn-tortillas makes it quite tough to get a corn flavour. However, I have seen a couple of recipes, and most recently in a Kurma Das book "great vegetarian dishes" that substitute cooked cornmeal (fine corn-flour - not the white stuff, but the actual fine corn polenta).
Unlike masa made tortillas which are pretty much impossible to press out without a tortilla-press, unless your an old mexican granny who has been patting them out by hand for 60 odd years (and I am not) these ones contain some regular flour so you can actually roll the dough out with a pin. It's still a bit tacky, but it works and these are pretty good and do have a different taste and texture to any other flatbread I have made.
Tortillas
1/4 cup fine cornmeal/polenta
3/4 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs oil
Flour for kneading and rolling
- Place the cornmeal in a pan with 1/4 cup warm water, stir continuously over a medium low heat until it starts to pull away from the side of the pan. Set aside.
- Sift the salt into the wholemeal flour and then add the oil and cornmeal mixture. Gather up the flour and keep kneading it into the cornmeal until you have a dough that's dry enough to turn out onto a floured work surface and kneed for a few minutes. If you need a bit more water or flour at this stage, adjust accordingly so as you end up with an elastic dough that is not too tacky to be able to roll out with a pin.
- Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and set aside for at least half an hour to relax. You can leave out for up to 3 hrs before you make them, but any more and you should store in the fridge where it'll keep about a day.
- When you are ready to roll the tortilla's divide the dough into 5 pieces. Heat a heavy bottomed frying pan or skillet over medium-high heat.
- Using a liberal amount of flour on a work surface roll your dough pieces into five tight balls and then pat them into discs between your hands. Roll out each one as thin as you can with a rolling pin into a circle about the size of a side-plate. Slap down on the hot griddle and cook for 30 seconds. Turn over and press down around the sides to encourage the tortilla to puff up. Cook for 20 seconds and then flip over and cook for another 10-15 seconds more on the first side.
As you do each one, keep wrapped in a clean tea-towel stacked one on-top of the other. This will keep them moist, but best to eat them immediately otherwise they will get a little soggy. However, you can heat un-eaten ones back up by wrapping between paper-towel, then wrapping over tin-foil and placing in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. Sometimes a bit crispy like this, but better than nothing..
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