Message: | It's not terribly complicated, but is somewhat time consuming to make fresh masa. I tried a couple of different methods before I settled on the one Rick Bayless recommends in one of his books. Dried corn is cooked in water with a small amount of calcium oxide (builder's lime) for about 45 minutes: not enough time to cook the corn through. Then the corn must be repeatedly washed and scrubbed in cold water to remove the gelatinous hull and the dark germ must be removed, one kernel at a time, from at least some of the corn. Otherwise the masa will be darkly speckled--all the germs need to be removed if the corn, at this point called nixtamal, is to be used for posole. Then the corn is ground. Up until now, I have been grinding the corn in my old Cuisinart, which does a semi-good job. It's hard to get it very finely ground, however. I just got a grain mill attachment for my Kitchen-Aid mixer, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. A big problem has been finding the right kind of dried corn to use. I scoured the local Latin markets around DC, but they only sold large mote-type corn from Peru and Bolivia. I used that a few times, and it made delicious tortillas, but the flavor wasn't quite what I was looking for. Rick Bayless told me that cooks in Mexico now use American-grown white field corn, which I was unable to find here. So, the last time I was back in the Bay Area, visiting family, I hauled fifteen pounds of field corn back with me on the plane. |