Homemade Corn Tortillas

I used to have such trouble making corn tortillas at home, using instant masa flour, that I always assumed the good ones I encountered in Texas and Mexico must have been made from scratch, and I pictured the cooks soaking the dried corn in lime, grinding it by hand, that sort of thing. Then on a trip to Mexico City a few years ago, practically every restaurant kitchen my sister and I saw, even those where the tortillas were beautifully flaky and delicious, had the same bags of Maseca brand masa that I used. Why I couldn’t get the results they did, using the same thing (which is really nothing more than corn treated with lime)? I called my friend, Mexican Cultural Institute cooking teacher Patricia Jinich, for a lesson, which turned into two, which turned into further emails and phone calls. It seems I wasn’t using enough water. Granted, I was following the proportions on the package, but Pati showed me that when I increased the proportion of water, the tortillas pressed more easily and looked smoother on the edges. Most important, when following her other techniques, such as her double-flip method, the tortillas puffed up when I cooked them: a sign that they had the internal layers required of a good corn tortilla. Making corn tortillas at home takes a little practice (and, of course a cast-iron tortilla press, which costs less than $20). If you don’t have access to good Latin markets, it’s worth it.