Homemade Masa Flour
Before Christmas, a friend and I successfully made our own masa flour using locally available ingredients from Uganda!
First, we got a bunch of maize and simmered it in a mixture of water and a local "salt" made with ash soaked in water (a weak base) called abalang. After almost two hours, the maize had turned into hominy and the pericarp (outer covering of the kernels) slipped off when we rubbed it in our hands.
After letting it sit overnight, we drained off the water, rinsed it, and put it out in the sun to dry.
After it was fully dry, we brought it to a grinding mill where the guy working there agreed to grind it even though it "looked spoiled" to him. And there it is - masa flour:
You might not think this is all that exciting, but in a country where there is so much maize, it is pretty disappointing not to be able to get flour with which one can make corn tortillas or tamales or pupusas or other fun foods like that.
First, I tried tortillas. It was kind of tricky without a tortilla press, but they turned out okay.
The leftovers were even better fried as tortilla chips, though.
After that, I made arepas, which were wonderful.
But the best was yet to come: tamales. I know I could have gotten corn husks somewhere, but I decided to try chaya leaves, since I have chaya growing in my garden...and it's edible. I boiled the chaya for 10 minutes (which removes the cyanide found in raw leaves), then used it to wrap the tamale dough.
I cooked it in my pressure cooker, but the first time was not 100% a success because I didn't have a basket to put them in and used tin foil (which made the pressure cooker kind of leak steam while cooking). But my friend gave me a spare steamer basket for the next time and it worked wonderfully.
The final, exciting product:
First, we got a bunch of maize and simmered it in a mixture of water and a local "salt" made with ash soaked in water (a weak base) called abalang. After almost two hours, the maize had turned into hominy and the pericarp (outer covering of the kernels) slipped off when we rubbed it in our hands.
After letting it sit overnight, we drained off the water, rinsed it, and put it out in the sun to dry.
After it was fully dry, we brought it to a grinding mill where the guy working there agreed to grind it even though it "looked spoiled" to him. And there it is - masa flour:
You might not think this is all that exciting, but in a country where there is so much maize, it is pretty disappointing not to be able to get flour with which one can make corn tortillas or tamales or pupusas or other fun foods like that.
First, I tried tortillas. It was kind of tricky without a tortilla press, but they turned out okay.
The leftovers were even better fried as tortilla chips, though.
After that, I made arepas, which were wonderful.
But the best was yet to come: tamales. I know I could have gotten corn husks somewhere, but I decided to try chaya leaves, since I have chaya growing in my garden...and it's edible. I boiled the chaya for 10 minutes (which removes the cyanide found in raw leaves), then used it to wrap the tamale dough.
I cooked it in my pressure cooker, but the first time was not 100% a success because I didn't have a basket to put them in and used tin foil (which made the pressure cooker kind of leak steam while cooking). But my friend gave me a spare steamer basket for the next time and it worked wonderfully.
The final, exciting product:
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