MARKETS : Masa Central

Mexican food purists often worry that progress is eroding the country’s time-honored cooking methods. They fret that the rich moles, once sold only in open markets by talented village cooks, are slowly being replaced by bottled mole mix from the supermarket. Too many home cooks, they complain, have taken to using packaged instant masa or dehydrated broth. And on both sides of the border (with the exception of a very few restaurants), it’s growing more difficult to find the sort of handmade tortillas that for centuries have given Mexican meals their marvelous earthy character

La Azteca Tortilleria, on a quiet street in East Los Angeles, will bring joy to the hearts of these traditionalists. The owners of this tiny shop are so fussy about freshness that they cook their handmade tortillas in small batches several times a day. And freshness is just one quality that makes the tortillas so extraordinary. Rolling and patting flawless tortillas, like making flaky pie crusts or perfect divinity, is quickly turning into a lost art. Fortunately, La Azteca has long employed tortilla maker Maria Rodriguez, who is one reason the business has such a loyal following.

On an average day the shop sells about 60 to 80 dozen each of flour and corn tortillas. But competition from mechanically made tortillas is undeniable (1990 wholesale sales of $1.5-billion are predicted to double by 1995, according to the Tortilla Industry Assn.).

“A whole generation has grown up on machine-made tortillas so they don’t insist on good handmade ones,” says Alex Bernal, whose wife, Maria, owned La Azteca for more than 15 years.

Are La Azteca’s tortillas that much different from the supermarket varieties? Absolutely. Slightly heavier than machine-rolled ones, the flour tortillas have the look and feel of pastry, and their slight irregularities impart a rustic character. Made the traditional way with the purest lard, they have the unmistakable taste of northern Mexican cooking. (La Azteca does accept special orders for tortillas made with vegetable shortening too.) Handmade corn tortillas aren’t as difficult to find as the flour kind, but La Azteca’s are uncommonly tasty and more refined than most; the tortillas make tacos that won’t fall apart in your hand and enchiladas that you can really sink your teeth into.

Tortilla production begins each morning about 4:30, after Rodriguez dons her apron. First, using a heavy, old-fashioned dough divider that looks like a turn-of-the-century hand water pump, she presses the dough into small balls, dusts them with flour and lines them up in rows before her on a large stainless-steel table. Flattening a ball with a thin rolling pin, she rotates it, rolls it again, then flips it onto the large iron griddle, all with movements as precise and well choreographed as a ballet. Alternating between cooking and rolling out the tortillas, her movements become a rhythmical roll-roll, flip, turn, turn, until she scoops the finished tortillas into a bin. Another employee stacks the tortillas and seals them in plastic bags.

Before cooking fresh batches of flour tortillas, Rodriguez moves on to making corn tortillas. The shop’s mill churns out fresh corn dough, or masa , in small batches using the corn that has been soaked in slaked lime water overnight. Rodriguez whips the masa in a mixer to lighten it, then unceremoniously plunks a mound of it on a lava rock metate, or grinding stone. She rubs a little piece of dough on the rough stone to smooth it before tossing it from palm to palm until it is flat and ready for the grill.

La Azteca uses its tortilla facility--a large room with free-standing burners, several griddles, tables and a refrigeration area--as though it were a big, extended family kitchen. There’s a pot of beans on the stove every day, and carnitas may be bubbling, tamales steaming or menudo cooking for weekend orders. Customers casually discuss their order with Maria Gonzalez, the shop’s new owner, telling her whether they want their gorditas with or without beans or whether to mix fresh chile with the tomato and onion that tops the tacos.

If you come early in the morning you can watch the tortilla production and order breakfast at a small table by the window. Little can compare with a chorizo and egg burrito made with flour tortillas hot off the griddle or with the simplicity of a cheese-filled quesadilla that allows the taste of fresh tortillas to come through.

But don’t expect restaurant service. On the bare wall, a small hand-written menu lists prices for various quantities of masa, tortillas and a few (but not all) of the cooked items sold here. No one has bothered to add the quesadillas, gorditas, burritos or sopes to the list although, like La Azteca’s tortillas, they are some of the best in town.

Shopping List

* Tortillas: Tortillas are, of course, at their peak straight off the grill, but La Azteca’s flour tortillas keep well for about a week in the refrigerator if tightly wrapped in foil. Wrapped this way they’ll freeze nicely too. If corn tortillas aren’t eaten the day you buy them, freeze them as soon as possible wrapped tightly in foil.

The authentic way to heat corn tortillas is to hold them over an open flame. But be careful; they can easily turn into tortilla toast. The faint at heart can warm them wrapped in foil in a 300-degree oven 7 to 9 minutes. If you want to keep warmed tortillas hot at the table for 20 to 30 minutes, invest in one of the inexpensive foam tortilla holders that many supermarkets and all Mexican markets now carry. Or wrap them in a clean dish towel and place them in a basket.

* Tamales: La Azteca simmers the pork for its well-filled meat tamales in water flavored with bay leaves to produce tender meat and a savory broth. The broth goes into the tamale dough while the meat gets cut into chunks and mixed with a sauce of dried chiles, seasonings and a little broth.

The shop also makes tamales filled with green chile and cheese and unfilled sweet tamales flavored with pineapple, raisins and brown sugar. You can purchase the tamales several ways: either crudo y congelado (uncooked and frozen), cocido (completely cooked and ready to eat) or cocido y congelado (cooked and frozen). Call ahead and you can also get unfrozen raw tamales, which is the best way to buy them. Nothing beats eating a tamale while it’s moist and fresh from the steamer.

To cook tamales at home, first discard the wax paper wrapping. Steam cooked tamales five to 15 minutes, until the tamales are warmed through. Uncooked tamales should be steamed about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, or until the masa holds its shape when you peel away the husk. Keep in mind that the masa will firm up more as it stands.

If you have only a few tamales to do, steam them in a collapsible vegetable steaming basket set in a covered saucepan of boiling water. Arrange them so steam will flow freely around each one. Make sure the tamales are well above the water level.

To cook a larger number, set a tamale steamer or a collapsible vegetable steamer in a deep pot and line the steamer’s bottom with overlapping corn husks that have been soaked for two hours in hot water to soften them. The husks add flavor and protect the dough from vapor, but this step is actually optional. Now arrange the tamales standing on end, or, if you have only a few, on their sides, open side up. Don’t let them touch. Cover the tamales lightly with more husks or foil to shield them from dripping water. As always, be sure the tamales are well above water.

* Masa molida and masa preparada: Years ago, before the days of commercial corn mills in Mexico, the woman of the house or a kitchen servant would spend hours each day on her knees grinding corn by rubbing it with a bar of stone called a mano on a low stone grinding stone (metate). Now almost all ground corn is purchased at a local mill or tortilleria .

Cooked in a solution of water and lime (calcium oxide), dried corn kernels are moistened with water and ground into dough or masa molida. Because La Azteca’s masa molida is made with freshly ground corn, it is definitely an improvement over boxed masa mix and even over most supermarket deli case masa, which may have been refrigerated a long time. Cooks who want to make tortillas, sopes or gorditas have been known to bring their own containers to La Azteca to carry masa home in.

A more coarsely ground corn becomes masa preparada-- the dough for savory tamales. It is whipped with broth left from cooked tamale meat, a little lard and baking powder.

* Quesadillas: Like its tacos, La Azteca’s quesadillas are basic--plain cheese or cheese with chorizo or with carnitas. They are made in the style of Northern Mexico, where a flour tortilla is simply folded over the filling and then baked or grilled.

Central Mexican-style quesadillas are quite different. They’re molded from raw corn dough into a half-moon shape and then deep-fried. For this style, use La Azteca’s masa molida; they have the same endless array of filling possibilities as tacos.

* Gorditas: It’s not easy to find a good gordita. These thick corn pancakes (literally, “little fat ones”) puff as they grill, making it easy to split them in half to accommodate a filling. Though many I’ve sampled have been stiff and heavy, like corn meal hockey pucks, La Azteca’s cook has a technique for getting hers to turn out especially tender. At home you can fill gorditas with just about anything. La Azteca sticks to the basics for its fillings: carne asada, carnitas or chorizo over an optional layer of chunky beans.

* Sopes: These masa griddle cakes resemble a shallow dish with turned-up edges. In Colima, cooks shape them like little boats and call them chalupas (canoes). In the Yucatan, they are panuchos, grilled on one side and filled with black beans and shredded chicken. The Veracruz-style picadas get their name from the way the dough is “picked” to make the proper sope rim.

Whatever the name or local variation, getting sopes ready for filling involves two cooking steps. First, the thick, raw tortilla gets grilled on one side. The rim is formed by hand afterward, while the sope is still hot and pliable. The final cooking step is deep-frying. La Azteca sells its sopes in the half-cooked form, ready for their customers to take home for deep frying.

* Tacos: La Azteca doesn’t attempt to compete with the many excellent taquerias that offer an extensive list of taco fillings. Your only choices here are carne asada and carnitas. But that’s no drawback--these plain preparations best enhance the elusive flavor of straight-from-the-grill tortillas made with freshly ground corn. A handful of chopped fresh tomatoes mixed with white onion and a little fresh chile makes the simplest and most appropriate garnish possible.

* Other prepared foods: La Azteca’s carnitas, the pork chunks slowly simmered in lard until they are sweet and juicy, are sold by the pound. On weekends customers call in for menudo and braised lamb heads. The lamb head meat is used for tacos, gorditas or sopes or simply eaten by using pieces of tortilla as edible spoon. The heads are only sold whole.

B & S brand is the chorizo of the house. It’s a sausage made in little thumb-sized links and cured slightly to make it firm and meaty. Bernal says his wife selected the brand because it isn’t greasy and doesn’t spatter when you cook it.

La Azteca Tortilleria, 4538 Brooklyn Ave., East Los Angeles, (213) 262-5977. Open Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.