Warming Tortillas
Warming tortillas the right way keeps them soft and flexible. No cracking or drying out.

A small step that matters.

✨ Comment RECIPE and I’ll send it to you. ✨
Corn or flour tortillas? 😁👇
https://www.binkysculinarycarnival.com/how-to-warm-tortillas/

#tortillas #kitchentips #binkysculinarycarnival

Siete aperitivos de los mejores cocineros para hacer en casa y ver el Mundial de fútbol

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://elpais.com/gastronomia/2026-06-10/siete-aperitivos-de-autor-para-ver-el-mundial-de-futbol.html

NOTE: As someone pointed out, this is a DANGEROUS process and requires a lot of safety precautions. I would refer to other instructions with more safety measures. I posted this more for the uses of #Lime (as opposed to using tons of chemicals).

Burn #Seashell #Lime in a Primitive Straw/Clay #Kiln!

By skillcult

"In this project we use Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Animal, Vegetable and Mineral to make something with a multitude of practical uses. The text is detailed and stands alone, but the videos are very useful and entertaining. Video #1, the Quicky version, is the 7 minute general interest, entertainment version. Video #2, buildcult, is the long educational 20 minute version. I'd recommend watching the short version first, before reading this instructable, so that you have a visual reference. I did my best to make it worth 7 minutes of your life. I conceived this project for the Brave the Elements contest, which you can vote in here, hint hint.

"The goal is to build a kiln from natural materials in order to burn and slake #lime for #seashells. Lime is immensely valuable! If lime disappeared tomorrow, civilization would fall hard! It is the main ingredient in cement and can be used to make #mortar and #plaster. It can also be used in the arts for #limewash and fresco, in #Soapmaking, mixed with casein (milk protein) to make #PreIndustrial waterproof #glue and #paint, for smelting and refining metal, and to remove hair and prepare skins for rawhide, hide glue or tanning. Ever read the ingredients on your tortillas or tortilla chips and seen 'traces of lime'? That’s because lime is used in processing #corn kernels to make tortillas, hominy and grits, which is easy to do at home. Not only does it make corn more nutritious and digestible, but it also lends to the unique flavor of those products. Beet sugar is processed with lime too. Lime is also used to potentiate certain drug substances such as betel nut and coca leaves, a small bit of lime being chewed with the plant material to activate it. So, yeah, wow, lime is one of the most useful substances ever!

"A WORD ON SAFETY: A lot of people think that lime is some deadly scary chemical that will burn you face off. It’s not… not really... well, maybe. #QuickLime is dangerous, but that is a brief transient state. During #slaking, the quicklime will give off heat and boil vigorously, so that is dangerous since the stuff can splatter around and is not only hot, but also highly alkaline. So, yeah, okay, maybe doing a face plant in a boiling tub of quicklime may burn your face off. Don’t do that! Otherwise, the stuff is not that horrible, and people have been making #tortillas, mixing mortar, plastering walls and tanning leather without goggles and hazmat suits for a very long time. It is also non-toxic. You definitely don’t want your pets drinking lime water or your kids playing with lime, but that is due to it’s concentration mostly, and not to inherent toxicity. When diluted, it becomes less and less caustic and is at some point completely harmless. Once converted to #CalciumCarbonate by drying, it’s just like egg shells, sea shells or stone, not only non-toxic, but actually used as a #calcium supplement. So, don’t get it in your eyes, keep it away from children and pets, be careful when slaking and use common sense and everything will be fine. It will temporarily dry skin though skin though, so be aware of that.

"Before we get to the fun stuff, let me explain how this works. Don’t be intimidated by the chemistry terms, they aren’t important. The changes lime goes through have a name, The Lime Cycle. By heating stone or shells red hot, about 900 Celcius (called calcining), we can change lime from it’s stable inert form, calcium carbonate, into #Calciumxide. Calcium oxide, aka Qucklime, is the most unstable and highly reactive form of lime. Quicklime reacts violently with water, giving off tremendous heat and boiling vigorously. This reaction with water makes it into #CalciumHydroxide, which is similar to #lye, but not as strong. This is the form that is used the most in the arts and industries mentioned above. If the lime is kept under a layer of water, it will not only keep forever, but it improves with age! This stuff is called lime putty. You may be more familiar with the dry lime you can buy in a bag, which is dry calcium hydroxide. This bagged powdered #HydratedLime is widely available, but inferior to wet #SlakedLime putty. You can hardly buy lime putty, and it is very expensive, but you can make it! For more on the forms of lime see my article, Understanding Lime.

"Basically, #LimePutty is like liquid rocks. Once it is allowed to dry with exposure to air, it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and turns back into a hard rock (or shell, which is pretty much the same thing). Think about that for a second. That is awesome!

"And thus the lime cycle is completed from rock or shell, to quicklime, to lime putty, and back to rock/shell.

"In my book, it doesn't get much funner than burning and slaking lime, so lets get this party started!"

Learn more:
https://www.instructables.com/Burn-Seashell-Lime-in-a-Primitive-StrawClay-Kiln/

#SolarPunkSunday #OldTech #LowTech #LoTech #DIY #TraditionalTechnology
#AncientTechnology #CalciumCarbonate #TraditionalMortar #History #HistoricalMethods #OldTech #SeashellLime

Burn Seashell Lime in a Primitive Straw/Clay Kiln!

Burn Seashell Lime in a Primitive Straw/Clay Kiln!: In this project we use Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Animal, Vegetable and Mineral to make something with a multitude of practical uses. The text is detailed and stands alone, but the videos are very useful and entertaining. Video #1, the Quicky version,…

Instructables

This recipe mentions using #CalciumHydroxide (#SlakedLime). I'll be posting about ways one could DIY that later...

From: How to Make Blue Corn Masa

by Mela Martinez

"DIRECTIONS

First of all, make sure that the corn is clean of any debris or little rocks. Place corn in a colander under the water faucet and rinse. Shake a little to remove any excess water.
Place corn into a non-corrosive pot. Add enough water to cover the corn. Some kernels will float, those are old or spoil kernels, discharge them.
Dissolve 2 Tablespoons of #Cal (Calcium Hydroxide) in ½ cup of water. Stir well.
Place the pot on the stove and turn the heat to medium-high. When the water starts boiling, add the Cal and water mix. The corn will turn a bright yellow color.
Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. After 15 minutes, check the corn and rub a few grains between your fingers. If you see a fine skin peeling from them, then they're ready. Turn down the heat and remove from stove. If after 15 minutes your corn skins are not peeling, keep cooking for 5 more minutes and check again.
Cover the pot with a lid and let it rest overnight or for at least 8 hours.
The next day, the corn and its residue will be settling at the bottom of the pot, and the skins will be easily removed when rubbing some kernels with your fingers.
Remove the liquid, reserving some of it to add to the grinding process.(also known as "#nejayote") and rinse the corn two or three times, rubbing off the loose skin, until the water looks clean. Place in a colander to drain well.
The corn is now ready for the grinder. Start grinding the corn in small batches twice or three times until it has a fine texture. The picture at the bottom right is how it will look after the first grinding. The corn grinder has to be tightly fitted to a stable surface to make this step as fast and smooth as possible. The corn grinder was meant to be screwed up to a working area where it will always reside.
After you've ground the corn 2 times, add some of the cooking water little by little to form the dough-masa. Knead a little until your dough is smooth. This dough will still be grainy, but good enough to make #tortillas or any other food you plan to cook with it. Sometimes, I grind the corn and don't add water, then I place it in plastic bags to store in the freezer. When ready to use, just let it sit until room temperature and then add the water to form the dough. To extend the life of the masa adds a pinch of cal while grinding the corn."

Full instructions and backstory:
https://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/how-to-make-blue-corn-masa/

#SolarPunkSunday #TraditionalRecipes #BlueCorn #BlueCornMasa #CornRecipes #MexicanFood #TraditionalFood #BlueCornRecipes

How to Make Blue Corn Masa | Authentic Mexican Food Recipes

Blue corn masa - The color of the masa will change depending on the kernels. step by step instructions with photos of the process.

Mexico In My Kitchen

#Nixtamalization

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Nixtamalization (/ˌnɪʃtəməlɪˈzeɪʃən, ˌnɪks-/ nish-tə-mə-lih-ZAY-shən) is a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes aqueous alkali metal carbonates),washed, and then hulled. The term can also refer to the removal via an alkali process of the pericarp from other grains such as sorghum.

"#NixtamalizedCorn has several benefits over unprocessed grain: It is more easily ground, its nutritional value is increased, flavor and aroma are improved, and mycotoxins are reduced by up to 97–100% (for aflatoxins).

"Lime and #ash are highly alkaline: the alkalinity helps the dissolution of hemicellulose, the major glue-like component of the maize cell walls, and loosens the hulls from the kernels and softens the #maize. The tryptophan in corn proteins is made more available for human absorption, thus helping to prevent niacin deficiency (pellagra).  Tryptophan is the metabolic precursor of endogenous niacin (Vitamin B3).

"Some of the corn oil is broken down into emulsifying agents (monoglycerides and diglycerides), while bonding of the maize proteins to each other is also facilitated. The divalent calcium in lime acts as a cross-linking agent for protein and polysaccharide acidic side chains.

"While cornmeal made from untreated ground maize is unable by itself to form a dough on addition of water, nixtamalized cornmeal will form a dough, called #masa. These benefits make nixtamalization a crucial preliminary step for further processing of maize into food products, and the process is employed using both traditional and industrial methods in the production of #tortillas and #TortillaChips (but not corn chips), #tamales, #hominy, and many other foodstuffs.

Etymology

"In the #Aztec language Nahuatl, the word for the product of this procedure is #nixtamalli or #nextamalli (pronounced [niʃtaˈmalːi] or [neʃtaˈmalːi]), which in turn has yielded Mexican Spanish #nixtamal ([nistaˈmal]). The Nahuatl word is a compound of nextli "lime ashes" and tamalli "unformed/cooked corn dough, tamal". The term #nixtamalization can also be used to describe the removal of the pericarp from any grain by an #alkali process, including maize, #sorghum, and others. When the unaltered Spanish spelling nixtamalización is used in written English, however, it almost exclusively refers to maize.

"The labels on packages of commercially sold tortillas prepared with nixtamalized maize usually list corn treated with #lime as an ingredient in English, while the Spanish versions list maíz nixtamalizado.

Impact on health

"The primary nutritional benefits of nixtamalization arise from the alkaline processing involved. The processing renders the protein more digestible, allowing tryptophan to be absorbed by humans. Humans can convert tryptophan into niacin, thus helping to prevent pellagra. Other measures of protein quality are also improved.  It was originally thought that the anti-pellagra action stems from increased availability of niacin (compared to a hemicellulose-bound form called "niacytin"), but multiple experiments have disproven this theory.

"Secondary benefits can arise from the grain's absorption of minerals from the alkali used or from the vessels used in preparation. These effects can increase #calcium (by 750%, with 85% available for absorption), iron, copper, and zinc.[4]

"Nixtamalization significantly deactivates #mycotoxins which are putative carcinogens. #Aflatoxins are reduced by 90–94%. Fumonisins are reduced by 82%."

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

#SolarPunkSunday #NativeAmericanFoods #NativeAmericanHistory #Corn #BlueCorn #MesoAmerica #TraditionalFoods #CulinaryAsh #CalciumCarbonate #History #FoodHistory #Corn #PlantAshes

Nixtamalization - Wikipedia

They take their day-old in-house tortillas and fry them up into the best chips you've ever had! In Upper Fells, Baltimore.

I hear the tacos are good too! There's a tiny counter inside for eating. Feels important to support our local Latino businesses since a lot of customers are laying low.

#baltimore #localbusiness #tortilleria #tortillas

Daily Special: Veggie wheat wrap with carrots, onions, spring onions, bell peppers, and chili. 😋

#food #tortillas #tortilla #cook #cooking #carrot #snack #veggie #vegetables #springonion #onion #bellpepper #chili #lunch #lunchtime #wrap #cuisine

Warming Tortillas
Warming tortillas the right way keeps them soft and flexible. No cracking or drying out.

A small step that matters.

✨ Comment RECIPE and I’ll send it to you. ✨
Corn or flour tortillas? 😁👇
https://www.binkysculinarycarnival.com/how-to-warm-tortillas/

#tortillas #kitchentips #binkysculinarycarnival