Chef Lupita
Birote Salado Norteño
The Noroeste sourdough roll from Sonora and Sinaloa, built on pata starter laced with Mexican lager and lime, with a dark crackling crust and a dense sour crumb that drinks capirotada syrup without falling apart.
Culinary Explorer
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Tortillas de Harina con Requesón Sudcalifornianas
Created by
Baja California Sur's enriched flour tortilla, thicker than Sonora's and biscuit-soft, the dough worked with fresh requeson and manteca de cerdo the way they do it on the ranches outside La Paz and Todos Santos.
Breads
Mexican
Weeknight
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
30 min
Active Time
20 min cook•2 hr total
Yield12 tortillas
This is a tortilla from Baja California Sur. Not Sonora. Not Chihuahua. Not the generic flour tortilla that gets called northern Mexican as if the north were a single place. Sudcaliforniana, from the cattle ranches that stretch between La Paz, Todos Santos, and the Sierra de la Laguna, where the women have been enriching their tortilla dough with fresh requeson for as long as anyone remembers.
The difference is in your hand the moment you eat one. Sonora's tortilla de harina is paper-thin and almost translucent, stretched over the forearm and slapped onto a hot disco. Baja Sur's tortilla is thicker, softer, almost biscuit-like. The requeson, fresh ranch cheese drained and crumbled, goes into the dough and changes everything: the crumb gets tender, the flavor gets faintly tangy, the texture turns plush. Manteca de cerdo does the rest. Not butter. Not vegetable shortening. Manteca. La manteca es el sabor and on a Sudcalifornian ranch the manteca came from the same pig that became the machaca on the comal beside the tortillas.
My mother never made these. She was jalisciense and she made flour tortillas the way her mother had, plain, with lard and water. I learned this version from a woman named Doña Reyna outside Todos Santos who fed me breakfast on her enramada one morning in 2014. She crumbled the requeson into the flour with her hands and watched me write it down in my notebook with an expression that said she did not believe a city woman would ever get it right. I have made them every week since. Recetas probadas y garantizadas. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to the ranches of the south of the peninsula.
Wheat reached Baja California Sur through the Jesuit and later Franciscan and Dominican missions established between the late 17th and 18th centuries, with Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto, founded in 1697, anchoring the introduction of Old World grains, dairy cattle, and pigs to the peninsula. Because corn is difficult to grow in the arid south of Baja, wheat became the staple grain and the flour tortilla took root as the everyday bread, while the small-scale ranch dairy tradition produced the fresh requeson that Sudcalifornian cooks fold into the dough. The enriched version of the tortilla, with requeson and generous lard, is associated with the ranching communities of the Sierra de la Laguna and the agricultural valleys around Todos Santos and El Pescadero, where the format remained a household tradition while the rest of Mexico's flour tortilla industrialized in the second half of the 20th century.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
all-purpose flour
Quantity
4 cups (500 grams)
plus more for the table
fine sea salt
Quantity
2 teaspoons
baking powder
Quantity
1 teaspoon
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
1/2 cup (110 grams)
at room temperature
fresh requeson
Quantity
3/4 cup (180 grams)
at room temperature
warm water
Quantity
3/4 to 1 cup
as needed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| all-purpose flourplus more for the table | 4 cups (500 grams) |
| fine sea salt | 2 teaspoons |
| baking powder | 1 teaspoon |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard)at room temperature | 1/2 cup (110 grams) |
| fresh requesonat room temperature | 3/4 cup (180 grams) |
| warm wateras needed | 3/4 to 1 cup |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide mixing bowl
- •Clean cotton servilleta or kitchen towel for resting and holding the tortillas
- •Heavy wooden rolling pin
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet, 10 inches or larger
- •Bench scraper for dividing the dough
Instructions
- 1
Mix the dry ingredients
In a wide bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder until evenly combined. The baking powder is what gives this tortilla its sudcaliforniana lift. Sonora's tortilla is paper-thin and rolled until you can read through it. Baja Sur's tortilla is thicker, softer, almost biscuit-like. The baking powder is part of why.
- 2
Work in the manteca
Add the manteca de cerdo to the flour. Use your fingers. Rub the fat into the flour until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal with no lumps of lard larger than a lentil. La manteca es el sabor. Butter will not give you this texture. Vegetable shortening will not give you this flavor. On the ranches outside La Paz, the manteca comes from the same pig that became the machaca. That is the chain.
If your manteca is cold and stiff, let it sit on the counter for an hour first. Cold lard fights you. Room-temperature lard surrenders to the flour. - 3
Add the requeson
Crumble the requeson into the floured fat. Work it through with your fingers until the cheese is broken up and distributed throughout the dough. You should not see lumps of cheese larger than a pea. The requeson is the soul of this tortilla. It enriches the dough, softens the crumb, and gives the finished tortilla the faint dairy tang that sets it apart from every other tortilla de harina in the north.
- 4
Bring the dough together
Pour in 3/4 cup of warm water and stir with your hand until the dough starts to come together. Add more water a tablespoon at a time until you have a soft, slightly tacky dough. It should hold together without sticking to your hands. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for about five minutes. The dough will go from rough and shaggy to smooth and elastic. You will feel it change under your hands. No me vengas con atajos. The kneading is what builds the structure.
- 5
Rest the dough
Form the dough into a ball, place it back in the bowl, and cover it with a damp cloth. Let it rest for at least one hour at room temperature. The gluten needs to relax. If you skip this and try to roll right away, the dough will fight you and the tortillas will shrink back on the comal. The senoras on the ranches in El Triunfo cover the bowl with a clean apron and let it sit while they do something else. Patience is the technique.
- 6
Divide and shape the testales
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces, about 75 grams each. Roll each piece into a smooth ball between your palms. These are the testales. Place them on a floured tray, cover with the damp cloth, and let them rest another 15 minutes. A rested testal rolls out without resistance. A fresh testal rolls out angry.
- 7
Roll thick, not thin
On a lightly floured surface, roll each testal into a round about 7 inches across and a generous 1/8 inch thick. Thicker than a Sonoran tortilla. This is not the gigantic paper-thin tortilla you stretch over your forearm. This is a small, soft, biscuit-thick tortilla that holds machaca con huevo and stands up to a spoonful of frijoles de la olla. Asi se hace y punto.
- 8
Cook on a hot comal
Heat a dry cast iron comal or heavy skillet over medium-high heat until a drop of water dances and disappears. Lay one tortilla on the hot surface. After about 45 seconds, you will see bubbles rising and the underside will show pale golden spots. Flip it. Another 45 seconds on the second side, and the tortilla should puff in spots and show toasted blisters. Flip once more for ten seconds if it needs it. Pull it off.
- 9
Keep them soft
Stack the finished tortillas inside a clean cotton servilleta as you go. The residual steam from each one softens the one below it. By the time you finish the stack, every tortilla in it is pliable and warm. Serve them within the hour. These tortillas reheat well on a dry comal the next day, but the day they are made is the day they sing.
Chef Tips
- •Real requeson is fresh, soft, mildly tangy, and faintly sweet. It is not ricotta, though ricotta is the closest substitute outside Mexico. If you use ricotta, drain it overnight in cheesecloth in the refrigerator to pull out the extra whey. Wet ricotta will give you a sticky dough.
- •If you cannot find manteca de cerdo from a butcher who renders it himself, render your own. Buy pork back fat, cube it, and cook it slowly in a heavy pot until the fat runs clear and the bits turn golden. Strain. The chicharrones go on the next batch of tortillas as a snack.
- •The dough rest is not optional. One hour minimum. Two hours is better. The senoras in El Triunfo cover the bowl and walk away to do other work. The gluten relaxes, the requeson hydrates the flour, and the tortillas roll out without fighting you.
Advance Preparation
- •The dough can be made and rested up to 8 hours ahead. Keep it covered with a damp cloth at cool room temperature, or refrigerate it and bring it back to room temperature for an hour before rolling.
- •The cooked tortillas keep wrapped in a cotton servilleta inside a sealed bag in the refrigerator for three days. Reheat one at a time on a dry comal over medium heat, about 20 seconds per side, until soft and warm.
- •These tortillas freeze well. Stack them with squares of parchment between each, seal in a bag, and freeze for up to two months. Thaw at room temperature before reheating on the comal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 79g)
Calories
260 calories
Total Fat
12 g
Saturated Fat
4 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
16 mg
Sodium
440 mg
Total Carbohydrates
32 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
1 g
Protein
6 g
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