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took me a moment...

i followed the recipe in the video, but what they don't show you is it takes 3 hours and a lot of screwing up (for someone who is making it for the first time) to complete the recipe. it's all smoke and mirrors in a tv studio..

Tee hee. I am thinking of christening @Syzygies's method the Noah's Ark. Fillings are easy by comparison - chicken skin, cubed chicken thigh and pork Al Pastor. We have a couple of vegetarians and will have beans, squash and avocado to satisfy them and accompany the meat protein. Looking forward to the jeopardy!

my wife has been nagging me to make these for a while. the balled up ones are dumplings i messed up. taste is not bad. but a pain to make..

Towels! You probably already have some.

@tekobo, this is a conundrum!!! We are having a family gathering with a Mexican meal on Christmas (only about 20 people) and I offered to make blue masa corn tortillas…….the thing is after thinking it out I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hand press and cook when all the last minute prep is also going on. So needless to say I’m in the same boat as you. As Syz pointed out fresh corn tortillas are available in many metropolitan areas, however they are also heated up right before serving. Our family has always reheated up tortillas directly over the gas flame on a cook top. Needless to say we would never entertain any stove / cooktop other than gas for this very reason. We do cook our tortillas….corn or homemade flour/cornmeal type on a comal / flattop but reheating is always directly over a flame. Many of our family prefer reheated tortillas with a little burn to them. Maybe consider keeping them warm after pressing and cooking on comal and then consider reheating once again last minute on comal or directly over a gas flame. As Syz pointed out it’s common to double up on corn tortillas for taco’s. A couple of years ago I came across a review of tortilla warmers and the winners were these pretty inexpensive fabric sleeve types they sell on Amazon. I did end buying a couple of these and concur these are the best I came across for keeping tortillas hot for a long time. I have some other ceramic ones with lids and they trap in too much moisture. Good Luck, I’m sure your Taco Fiesta will be a smashing success !!! Feliz Navidad!!!

In California we have many Mexican restaurants / grocery stores, and the bigger ones include tortilla factories on premises. There are two within ten minutes of my house. Tortillas are sold in bags of fifty, often still warm, and it's a common sight while waiting in line to see a Mexican leave with two to four bags. My next door neighbor (the master woodworker) throws parties this way. For his birthday some years back his family bought him an outdoor griddle, a cart with a propane tank, about the size of a typical gas grill, with instead a restaurant-style griddle on top. I hid this for them till his birthday, and borrowed it back to serve tacos for 50 at a wedding rehearsal dinner. (I made pork butt in the KK, and Rancho Gordo beans, and bought the tortillas, guacamole, chips, and salsas.) French fries are twice cooked. So are commercial tortillas. They are usable as sold warm in the bag, but everyone always heats them on a griddle for serving. Think "buy sliced bread, make toast." Our tortillas from homemade masa can be more substantial, but the same principles could apply. What one might overlook if one has never seen this: Commercial tortillas are grilled, and often served, in pairs. This of course wouldn't work for the first cook, which for us is usually the only cook, but it works for the second. This has the effect of grilling one surface of each tortilla while the inside surfaces of the pair steam each other. One flips the pair. One could reverse the pair to grill all surfaces or leave this alone, a matter of taste. For a party, the point here is one can do twice as many tortillas at once, grilling in pairs. For thin commercial tortillas, it is usually the case that one builds a taco leaving the pair alone. Why is a subject of debate, and it's largely custom, I'm not sure one can believe any single answer. One theory is that individual tortillas are fragile, but both tortillas in a pair are unlikely to split in the same location. A different theory is that one can then separate the two tortillas to make two tacos from one. I've tried this and they don't always separate that easily, suggesting a competing theory that the pair is to provide more food, and the vendor doesn't want to try separating them either. For us, if they're cooked sufficiently on pass one, they'll grill just fine in pairs and separate easily for serving. I press mine thick enough that one wouldn't want to use pairs to make tacos. So this is what I'd do for your party. You don't even really need a practice run if there isn't time; good judgment should keep you out of trouble, first try.

Meal prepped for the week. Salmon and smashed golden potato’s on the left side indirect, veggies on the right direct heat.