Just in time for Hispanic Heritage Month, Masienda founder Jorge Gaviria stopped by the 'Wake Up With Cheddar' studio to give us all a lesson on how easy it is to make masa. Watch! 

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month With Masienda

celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month continues and today it's all about Masa now. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Jorge go vera from Massey agenda as he brought along some tasty treats for us, take a look at this or hey, good to have you here, thank you so much for joining us. So for those that don't know what is Masa masa is the dough. It literally just means dough, but it's a very special dough in this case. It's one that is made from like a superfood corn treatment process. Okay, interesting. Why? I feel like it's kind of having its moment right now. Why is it sort of just becoming sort of like big in pop culture now? I think because we're on cheddar now right? I think that's, that's how it all starts. But I think, you know, it's like it's been a couple of 1000 years in the making, you know this the food that we all really know and love like if you ever had a Taco before, Yeah, you've had, you've had Masa. So I think like it's just, it's been out for a long time. It's, you know, it's, it's got rolls deep but like people just haven't taken the time to really discover it. It's kind of like an unsung hero that finally is getting it. So Jorge roll this out for us because it essentially does it start like this and then you roll it into this. Yeah. So what we're working with today is Masa Harina is Masa flour and so this takes the entire process of nick stabilization, which is that like alkaline treatment, we're not gonna, I don't want to scare anyone off. This is already becoming a science. Exactly. So basically this is the fun like you know Bisquick version, we're gonna add a little bit of water to it. It comes from a pouch that looks like this, we're gonna add a little bit of water to it. Already did that. I mixed it, you can do that and then it turns into this and then it turns into this so this looks like a thing of plato right there. Yes, exactly. And it should have that texture. Like the goal is that you get to a point where it's sort of like right wet but like not too and it does kind of feel like almost a play doh almost, which is great. Who doesn't love that? Okay, so what we're gonna do is we have three, there's so many shapes, it's like pasta, you know, it's similar, it's like I think 300 shapes in pasta, we have the same amount kind of thing working with masa. So we're gonna do three. These are three of my favorites. We have a watch patellas and Tostadas. Okay and so what makes them all sort of different, I mean obviously the shapes are different. Each one of these but what sort of makes them different here. You know, it's really technical baker, summer summer toppers like we're gonna put stuff on top of it. Taco summer stuffers, We're going to kind of fill it. These have re fried beans on the inside. You know, I think it's like just every region had its own adaptation of what a shape could be and there's reasons for that. But you know, they're all really fun to play with and we're gonna, we're gonna do these real quick. What's fun is you can see one, how easy this is. We just added water. I took a ball, we're gonna form this. Each ball is going to create one of these shapes. We're gonna start with the easiest one to start with. And I love that you're using a smiley face. Yes, thank you. So yeah, these are very critical. This has to have like some type of grocery bag, something to kind of separate the masa from sticking to the and I'm using a tortilla press, but like you don't have one at home, You can totally just kind of macgyver it and get some use most of the book to smash. So it's a double thing. Yeah, exactly. So I'm gonna give it a little press and just like that. I mean smiley face, I don't know, forgetting the overhead shot. We've got, we've got a tortilla. So this is pretty simple. I have many layers of bags here, but We've got tortilla, this is like now, you know, if I were to actually put this and cook this now, I'd leave this on a griddle or pan for like 5, 10 minutes and it's just going to dry out and look like this literally means so this is just dried out version of this. This wasn't like fried or anything that also can be fried, but the true word means toasted so it's just a toasted tortilla, interesting. What else can people learn about? Oh my goodness! I mean I think you know there's something in the book for everybody, you know, I wrote this book as being you know, very obsessed with Masa. So there's, there's going to be the component, the scientific component if you want to kind of dive into that. But it's also got really pretty pictures and it's got great recipes. So we've got stuff that kind of conforms that traditional Masa sort of like canon, but we also have like Masa, you know cookies and like waffles, we kind of really try to mix it up and make it as fun as expansive as possible. Jorge, this is all looking amazing. I cannot wait to dive into all of this. Thanks to Masa expert. Jorge gave era thanks to all this delicious stuff and of course you can get his cookbook Masa techniques recipes and reflections on a timeless staple wherever you buy your books, Jorge thank you so very much for joining me, appreciate it