Washington Post food staffers piled ten store-bought corn tortilla brands into the basket in an effort to choose the corniest. The verdict? Trader Joe's wins with simplicity (just corn, lime, and water in there), the familiar Mission brand is just OK, and ew,Whole Foods generic brand mimicked "a corn-flavored Fruit Roll-Up," noted one taster.
There's nothing quite like a fresh made tortilla, but if you've got to use one that's pre-made, this week's Taster's Choice panel over at the SF Chronicle's says Trader Joe's thin corn tortillas reign supreme over a field of thirteen. The judges said they "were "pliable and supple," if a little "flaky." And they had a "decent corn flavor" with "nice browning on the side." Mission's white corn and yellow corn tortillas took second and third place respectively; Trader Joe's thicker corn tortillas scored at the bottom of the pack, interestingly enough, along with Ranchero's.
The director Robert Rodriguez has a new movie out, Grindhouse, which I haven't gotten around to seeing yet, but I did love 2005's Sin City, his adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book. Turns out if you get the Sin City DVD, one of the special features on it is the second episode of Rodriguez's 10-Minute Cooking School, for his Sin City Breakfast Tacos:
He makes his tortillas from scratch, and uses both lard and butter! I may have to fight his new girlfriend Rose McGowan for him.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 26, 2007 at 5:24 PM
Raul Gutierrez has an amazing photoblog (one of my all-time favorites, as a matter of fact) but the reason I'm linking to him today is his text blog post on how to buy good tortillas: "Good tortillas have 3 ingredients: corn, lime, water. That's it. If anything else is listed in the ingredients you your tortillas are no good. If your supermarket doesn't have tortillas with these ingredients (and these ingredients only), go somewhere else." And yes, he gives you good advice on where that somewhere else should be.
