I love Tex-Mex food. Oh how I wish there was decent Mexican food around these parts. Every single Mexican food restaurant that I have been to in Montreal is either bland or very bland, unfortunately. Since I had a craving for Mexican food I decided to make Gorditas. I actually made this recipe a few weeks ago so I am sitting here trying to remember what I put in them. Strangely enough gordita means “little fatty” in Spanish. This is also a term of endearment for chubby women (no, I am not kidding. We’re not very politically correct in Spanish). I cannot imagine a scenario in which a man will call his wife “little fatty” in English and not end up sleeping on the couch for a week. The recipe for the tortillas is here.
The tortilla part was easy to make. You mix masa, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
The recipe calls for adding some cotija cheese to the tortillas. Since Italian cheese is what passes off as exotic at my local cheese counter I ended up using feta instead.
I also added some corn kernels. I took some frozen corn and nuked it in the microwave until it was thawed and tossed it into the bowl.
I added enough water to bring everything together so that the dough was stiff but not crumbly.
Traditionally you fry gorditas but I decided to bake them instead. I scooped out the tortillas with an ice cream scoop and patted them down with moistened hands. I put them in the oven at 350 Celsius which the standard temperature that I use when I am baking something which is usually fried.
To top my gorditas I made pulled pork and once it was shredded I mixed it with browned onions that I had cooking on the stove as I took care of the tortillas.
To make a sauce I added in tomato puree, cumin, coriander, chili powder, salt and pepper as well as some Mexican spice mix which I had in the pantry.
I had no idea how long to cook the tortillas so I left them in the oven until they were firm and golden.
To assemble the gorditas I topped them with tomatillo salsa (from a bottle, but it comes from Mexico, Old El Paso’s travesty of a salsa has not yet darkened my doorstep), fresh cilantro, guacamole and some feta cheese. The tortillas were nice and tasty with the sweet corn kernels providing a nice counterpoint to the saltiness of the feta cheese. Tomatillo salsa and guacamole are always winners in my book and they make everything better. This meal was most definitely a repeat. It didn’t take long to make and made quite a bit of leftovers. The only downside was that this is not the kind of thing that I could take to work for lunch, however it made a few excellent meals to have during the week.
