Dryland CornHow To Use Hopi Corn To Make Tortillas
First Attempt At Making Masa Corn Dough
On the first try we used a recipe that said to add 1.5% cal (calcium hydroxide or pickling lime). The cooking container was large and after adding 1kg of corn, decided to do 2kg, first mistake. To make sure it was nixmalized we added 36g (more than 1.5% of cal) and cooked for 50 minutes, 2nd mistake. After which it didn't seem all that soft so we let it sit overnight. The next day it was mushy and slimy on top but after rinsing there didn't seem to be any skins comming off. So we added 48g of cal, cooked for 60 minutes, and left it sit overnight, 3rd mistake. I still didn't see any skins (they probably all dissolved with that much cal) but since they seemed nicely swollen rinsed and left them to drain overnight in the refrigerator. I ground them with a Victoria mill and the dough was nicely pliable, soft, and springy like playdough.
We took the masa dough and made a few masa dumplings, called chochoyotes, and ate them with chicken mole. They were good though with all the spices in the mole it was hard to taste the dumplings. We also put the nixmalized corn (hominy) directly into the mole, but the chochoyotes were more popular.
After a few days we decided to grind the dough again in the Victoria grinder to make tortillas. They pressed nicely but almost always broke when removing the plastic, but they did puff up nicely. It didn't help that on the first one we hadn't gotten ready with a spatula! We did some taste tests, my youngest daughter helped since it was like playdough, and she said it tasted funny. I tried it and they were slightly bitter and not that nice (too much cal). We added salt to the dough, too much salt, and so it was ruined and really did become playdough for my youngest daughter (she kept it).
So, this was an exercise in how not to make masa or tortilla dough.
STICK TO 1% CAL AND RINSE WELL
Nixmalized Hopi Corn
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Chochoyotes With Mole
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Pressing Hopi Corn Tortillas
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Cooking Hopi Corn Tortillas / Puffed
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Second Attempt At Making Masa Corn Dough
We got a new 8 quart stockpot with lockable strainer and glass lid perfect for nixmalizing smaller batches. We added 500 grams of corn and 5 grams of cal and cooked this for 1 hour on the first day and let it sit overnight. The corn had a fantastic aroma of allspice and cinnamon, and at least one other person described aromas of cinnamon and allspice when nixmalizing red colored corn varieties. On the second day we did not change the cal solution, cooked again for 60 minutes, and let it sit overnight. On the 3rd day we rinsed the corn 5 or 6 times and let it drain the refrigerator. At this point it was hominy and we used it in the mole. It was good the first day when it was still firm like garbonzos but by the second day soaking it had swollen up and was not as nice. I put the remainder in the refrigerator to drain and grind with the next batch.
Third Attempt At Making Masa Corn Dough (Feb 2nd 2025)
We had to take a few days break because our water problems became severe. There is a badger burrow right on our 600ft underground power and water lines to the well. First one of the underground power cables was undervoltage and damaged so we swaped the damaged live wire for the neutral on both ends, and the pump worked for a few days. Then the pipes froze and we discovered that the breaker to the heaters under the trailer had tripped. The next day the heaters were not on again because the gfci outlets needed to be reset. Finally, the temperatures plummeted to 10°F and wind picked up to 27mph. So, no water.
Time & Water Saver - This time I took the corn and pushed it back and forth on an 1/8th inch wire mesh and this got rid of 99.9% of the chaff, silk, cob fragments, and undesirable half formed kernels. I washed once with bottled water and this method required minimal washing. I highly recommend this as I was able to clean a 3000 gram batch in 15 minutes compared to cleaning a 500 gram batch by washing and picking out discards for 40 minutes.
The proceedure was the same using 1% cal except we tried to reduce cooking and replace with longer soak in cal (to reduce energy use). Cooking 30-40 minutes the first and second days. Drain the cal and rinse in the 3rd day. Cooking again in plain water the 3rd day for 40 minutes and letting it sit overnight. Rinsed again on the 4th day, drained, and let drain more in the refrigerator.
To be continued...with pictures. For the first time I have uploaded and linked to videos on YouTube, old programmers can learn new tricks! I may have overdone the videos on this page, and they are amateur, but becoming an expert starts with 1 step.
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