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Saturday, December 12, 2020

Soft Homemade Tortillas made with Sourdough starter & Jack fruit Fajitas with Beetroot Margarita: Salud !!

 In 2018, when we had visited San Francisco, we went to Fisherman's wharf and went to Boudin bakery for lunch.  They had so many varieties of sour dough breads, and one of them was sourdough tortillas.  I loved them, and was determined to make these, when I got back... as I had the sourdough starter in my fridge.  However never got around to it and finally decided to make them when I thought about making Jack fruit Fajita.  First I will give you recipe for sourdough tortilla recipe and then will go over how to make regular and  Jack fruit Fajita.

What I love about fajitas is. that it is such a versatile recipe, you can not go wrong with ingredients and topping and can use any thing you desire or anything that you have in your fridge or pantry.  With the pandemic, the trips to the grocery stores are limited, so I did not have Romain or iceberg lettuce for topping therefore,  I decided to use cabbage and I dressed it with pickled beets brine from the jar, and that is when I had the idea of making the beet root margarita :) Yumm !! it was a great compliment to the fajitas.

Ingredients for Sourdough Tortilla:

  • 2 cups of AP flour
  • 1 and 1/4 tsp of salt
  • 1/4 cup of butter softened at room temp (1/2 stick)
  • 1/2 cup of sour dough starter
  • 1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon of hot water

Method: 

  • Whisk the flour and salt together in the electric mixer bowl.
  • Mix the butter into flour and salt mix, break it up with your hands or fork.
  • Then place the mixer bowl in stand electric mixer,
  • Stir in sourdough starter and mix at low speed.
  • Gradually add water continue to mix until nice soft  but not sticky dough is formed (not like naan or pizza dough but more like chapati dough).
  • At this point you can increase the speed of mixture and mix until the dough recedes the bowl.
  • Cover with plastic wrap and let it stand for 30 min min and maximum of 4-8 hour at room temp. 
  • Then you can make the tortillas as follows of store the dough  in the fridge for 24 hours. 


















  • Transfer the dough on floured board knead for additional 1-2 min until smooth and divide in to 8 -12 balls and make the ball smooth by rolling them in one direction in between both your palms.
  • Cover the balls with plastic wrap and let them sit for another 30 min.

Roll out each ball to about 10 inches for soft taco or to 12-14 inches diameters to burritos size circles.

Roll them as thin as you can, you will have to use the flour on the rolling board so it does not stick to rolling surface.


  • While you are rolling the tortilla, heat a cast iron skillet or non-stick skillet on medium to high heat.
  • There are two keys to success for making tortillas first is to roll the dough as thin as possible because once you put them on the skillet it  will retract and will  become little thicker than you rolled.
  • Second key is have the skillet piping hot.
  • Place the rolled tortillas on the hot skillet and cook for 20-30 seconds until you see light brown spot on cooked side.
  • Then you can flip it and cook the other side for 15-20 sec, you can then continue to cook  on to the same skillet or you can cook it on open flame using a tong if you feel comfortable otherwise just cook it on the same skillet, you will see it puff up.  
  • Do not over cook, one tortilla should take 60 sec to cook on both side.












  • Place the cooked tortilla on paper or cloth towel in tortilla container and keep it open until cool then you may cover it. 
  • They are now ready to be served with topping or can be stored in airtight container for 3-4 day at room temp. You can freeze them up to 4-6 months.














Now I will give you ingredients and method for regular fajita and ingredients and method for Jackfruit fajitas.

For regular fajitas you will need following:

  • 1 medium red onion sliced
  • 1 green pepper sliced 
  • 1 yellow onion sliced
  • 3-4 cloves of garlic
  • 8-10 mushrooms sliced (portobello or snow capped)
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
  • 1 tsp of cumin seeds
  • 1 tablespoon of taco seasoning

Method:

  • Heat the oil in frying pan on medium high heat, when oil is hot add cumin seeds.
  • When these crackle add taco seasoning immediately followed by sliced garlic, onions, green pepper and mushroom.
  • Turn the heat to high and stir for 1-2  min.
  • Do not overcook, these need to be crunchy.

 

For topping you will need following: 

  • Shredded cheddar or pepperjack cheese
  • Guac if available, or sliced avocados, I used avocado salsa.
  • Chopped lettuce, I like Romain lettuce, iceberg is fine too, I did not have either so used sliced cabbage with pickled beets
  • Pickled Jalapeno slices if desired
  • Choice of your salsa or taco sauces,  I used corn black bean salsa. (Recipe on this blog)  


  • You can use taco sauce of Jicama salsa ( Recipe on this blog)
  • You can get creative with topping.
  • Just place everything on tortilla and roll it into a wrap and serve with your favorite drinks.






 




Ingredients to make Jack fruit Fajita:

  • One can of young jackfruit
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
  • 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon of Sazon seasoning
  • 1 teaspoon of Adobo seasoning
  • 1 teaspoon of liquid amino (it is like soya sauce but not with  as much sodium, my dear friend suggested this and I like it better than soya sauce, it has a distinct flavor too)
  • 1/2 teaspoon of siracha seasoning (or to taste).
  • 3-4 garlic cloves.
  • You can finely dice onion and add onion but I did not.
  • If you like you can saute all the other veggies (onions green pepper and mushroom together with Jack fruit, but I wanted to keep it separate)
  • Drain all the brine out of can of jack fruit and wash it with running water.
  • Shred the jack fruit in small pieces with your hands.
  • Heat oil in pan and when oil is hot, add  cumin seeds.
  • When these crackle, you can add chopped onions and garlic, I did not add onions. 
  • Saute them for 1-2 min add all the seasoning and then jack fruit. 
  • Saute for 1 min and take it out in serving dish.
  • Note that I did not add any salt as all the seasonings are well salted.

 

  • For topping you can use same topping as for the regular fajita.
  • I also used the sauteed onions green peppers and mushroom along with sauteed Jack fruit and topped it with same  topping.
  • Roll the fajita in to the wrap an serve with your favorite drink.
  • I served it with Beet root Margarita... Yummm !






































Enjoy !!






Recipe of sourdough tortilla adapted from a recipe of regular tortilla from King Arthur's website and all Photographs by Surekha,