Masa Harina Waffle excerpted from Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple by Jorge Gaviria. Photography by Graydon Herriott.
MASA is your guide to making authentic, high-quality masa from scratch and cooking with it in your home kitchen.
It’s time to learn the way to a perfect taco, and it all starts with the masa. Like sourdough before it, craft masa is on the brink of a global culinary movement. Jorge Gaviria’s company, Masienda, has become a proxy message board at the center of the swelling masa conversation. With this cookbook, he completes the story of how to create this special building block from scratch.
Brimming with history, replicable techniques, and reflections from masa authorities, including third-generation tortillerxs and acclaimed chefs, MASA reveals the beauty and longstanding traditions behind this elemental staple. In addition to teaching how to make masa from dried corn kernel into a fully realized dish, this book also shows cooks how to use masa in 50 base recipes for tortillas, pozole, tamales, and more, empowering chefs of any level to think creatively and adapt recipes confidently for their own use.
In addition, ten well-known chefs offer inventive recipes-such as tamal gnocchi, masa waffles, and shrimp and masa grits-to inspire new ways of relating to this timeless, dynamic food.
TORTILLAS ARE EVERYWHERE: For years now, tortillas, the most common masa application, have outpaced the consumption of hamburger buns in the United States, and their companion condiment, salsa, has outsold ketchup as the nation’s leading condiment.
ENDLESS DINNER INSPIRATION: This book features a wide range of recipes from the traditional basics—Tortillas, Pupusas, and Arepas—to the inventive, like Blue Masa Sourdough Bread, Tamal Gnocchi, and Shrimp and Masa Grits.
THE MASTER ON MASA: Jorge Gaviria is the founder of Masienda, a resource and supplier of high-quality masa and masa products. Jorge Gaviria wrote MASA after successfully working through tens of thousands of inquiries from home cooks on everything from the best equipment to ideal cooking temperatures to how to prevent a tortilla from falling apart during reheating.
Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple by Jorge Gaviria
Masa Harina Waffle
I had never personally experimented much with sweet pastry items of any sort, but I knew it could be done easily with masa. After all, masa appears in not only savoury applications throughout Mesoamerica but also plenty of confections, like the rosquilla cookies of Nicaragua and turuletes of southern Mexico (Chiapas and Tabasco).
I asked our friend Jess Stephens, who herself worked at the Modern Mexican pastry programs at the restaurants Empellón and Onda, to develop a few sweet dishes for Masienda, including these Masa Harina Waffles and White Chocolate Chip Cookies (page 250).
MAKES 4 WAFFLES
3 egg whites
3 Tbsp sugar
2 cups [480 ml] buttermilk
1 egg yolk
6 Tbsp [85 g] butter, melted
1½ cups [210 g] all-purpose flour 1 cup [140 g] masa harina
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Whip the egg whites and sugar until medium-stiff peaks form. In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg yolk, and melted butter until evenly combined. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, masa harina, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Alternate whisking in 1/2 cup [120 ml] of water and the buttermilk mixture. Fold in the egg white mixture. Allow the batter to sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes for the corn to soften. The batter will be thick, as the masa harina will absorb much of the liquid. Follow your waffle maker’s instructions for baking, and serve with your favourite toppings.
Note (Optional): If you happen to have an extra sour-dough starter on hand, you can substitute it for up to half of the buttermilk, for waffles with a little pucker.
Recipe reprinted with permission from Chronicle Books.