When you live in a country far away from home, you tend to
dry more of different cuisines in order to blend in. Ohh yes! You read that
right. We as Indians try our level best to try and blend in sending our
wonderful taste buds on a toss. See, believe it or not, Indian cuisine is one
of the most wonderful cuisines you can come across. So many varieties of food
offered by one country where the food palette from one state to another differs
as much as countries in Europe.
Now, I don’t mean to look down upon other cuisines but I do
feel very proud of my ethnicity. Having tried so many different spices, oils,
vegetables is an experience of its own. So, coming back to living in America,
we tend to please people around us and not or taste buds. Indian food with spices
is actually a very healthy option for guilt free food. Leaving that we indulge
in butter and cheese based cuisines coz that satisfies the masses and we want
to be one of those. But for those of us, who yearn for meals with similar
taste, Italian and Mexican food come the closest.
Being a Muslim and eating only halal, our best bet for food
is either vegetarian or seafood. Also, not trying food made by people who do
not stick to the rules of a cuisine and make it in a fusion way is not my cup
of tea. So, people like me, who want try that authentic Mexican chicken rice
bowl from their favorite Mexican restaurant, eat fish and try to cook same
flavors with chicken at home. I tried my level best to stick to Mexican flavors
to get the authentic taste. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
One day, Mr. Parveez was gone in a meeting, and I was frantically trying to get lunch on the table in time. Looking at the uncooked chicken breast on my kitchen island, confused what to do with it, I asked my boys what they would like. The answer was “Can you make tacos”. I decided, tacos as fate would have it, with two kids hanging on my legs whining about how they were nearing starvation [not to forget the kids are 11 and 7]. And then, I realized I didn’t have any tortillas…. which makes for a pretty crummy taco lunch…. So now I had 2 choices. I could try to pack both of my starving children into the car for one package of tortillas, or I could try to come up with something using what I already had.
Dreading the prospect of trying to wrangle the rug rats into the car, I chose to figure something else out, which is when I came across this amazing recipe for homemade flour tortillas and I owe my undying gratitude to that website [which I forgot to save…ggggrrrr] because not only were these homemade flour tortillas deliciously amazing, it also saved me from dragging my lovely, but kind of crazy, children to the grocery store in pursuit of the store-bought kind of tortillas.
The recipe is delightfully simple. The hardest part for me was trying to roast them which has to be done on super low flame and should be rotated non stop. I found it was easiest to flatten the dough with my hands as much as possible before using the rolling pin. And even if you’re not like me and aren’t used to making chapattis and most of your tortillas come out kind of oblong or misshapen, that’s okay. The shape takes away nothing from the deliciousness.
You don’t have to be disheartened if you don’t have a stand mixer. Though, the directions call for one with the dough hook attached. And If you have a hand mixer you probably have dough hooks too! This recipe works for hand mixers too! And if you don’t have any, making dough with your hand isn’t that difficult either.
Making chicken is fairly easy and doesn’t require any marination or too much prep either. Treat yourself to something delicious and easy….
