Tortillas was Atlanta's greatest ever burrito restaurant if you ask me or anyone else who ever ate there. As previously discussed in these pages, I would schedule entire days around leaving work early so I could get to Tortillas, have a shrimp and potato burrito with half a bottle of green salsa and two beers and be asleep in bed by 5pm. Good times.
Anyway, their beans were really something special, and I am placing the semi-apocryphal recipes here for safekeeping since they seem to be disappearing from the places I thought they were.
+++
Tortillas Burrito Recipes
adapted from the Tortillas myspace page
Guacamole
Ingredients: Haas avocados, red chili powder, ground cumin, garlic powder, black pepper, salt, vinegar.
Process: Break up the avocados so that they are chunky
Add the spice mixture in this ratio: 6 parts red chili powder, 5 parts ground cumin, 2 parts garlic powder, 2 parts black pepper, 3 parts salt.
Add vinegar to taste, approx. 1 tbls. per avocado used
Add Red Rooster or Texas Pete hot sauce to taste., approx. 1.5 tsp. per avocado used
Green Sauce
Ingredients: 1 part canned tomatillos, 1 part canned jalapeño slices, fresh cilantro, fresh onion.
Process:
Drain the tomatillos
Combine with the jalapeños and their juices. (1 to 1 ratio of tomatillos to jalapeños)
Add diced onion and cilantro and blend in a food processor. Use cilantro for coloring
Red Sauce
Ingredients: 4 parts canned tomatoes, 1 part canned jalapeños, chili powder, cumin, salt
Mix the tomatoes with the canned jalapeños and their juices
Add the spice mixture in this ratio: 5 parts chili powder, 4 parts cumin, 3 parts salt
Blend in a food processer until the desired texture.
Salsa Fresca
Ingredients: Tomatoes>Onion>Cilantro
Process: Combine and blend that stuff!
Beans (Black or Pinto)
Ingredients: dry beans, salt, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, black pepper, vegetable oil (2 tbls. per lbs. of beans).
Do not presoak beans but do remove stones, etc.
In a pot, combine beans with 7 parts salt, 5 parts chili powder, 3 parts cumin, 2 parts garlic powder, 2 parts black pepper, and vegetable oil.
Cover beans with water (just above the level of the beans) and bring to a simmering boil. Cook for 3 to 4 hours (less if using black beans).
Marinades
According to the “recipe”, the shrimp was covered in guacamole spice; the potatoes and tofu were marinated with the red spice. The steak was marinated for a day using equal parts vinegar, water, corn oil, and red spice. Red Rooster was usually added and sometimes the guacamole spice was swapped for red spice.
+++
Those are the internet notes. Here's my first attempt:
900g dried brown beans
2 tsp fine salt
3 tsp chili powder (yeah, generic, would like to come up with a more specific instruction here)
3 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp black peppercorns, freshly ground
2 tbsp olive oil
Cook til tender, about 2 hours.
+++
