Masa (Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple)

Masa (Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple)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 and 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 to fully realized dish, Masa (Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple) 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.