Homemade Seafood Burrito

Perfect for lunch or a quick dinner. You can absolutely make the flour tortillas and store until time for lunch. Seafood filling can be altered in a million ways to be vegetarian, vegan or a hard-core meat lover. Try this recipe to know how fun it is to make homemade tortillas with their countless filling options, and also to learn that homemade burritos are real fun to make and to eat.

Tortilla Prep Time: 10 minutes Rest Time: 20 Minutes

Tortilla Cook Time: 12-15 minutes, depending on the balled-dough sizes

Tomato Sauce Prep Time: 10 minutes Tomato Sauce Cook Time: 30 Minutes

Filling Prep Time: 10 minutes Filling Cook Time: 45 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 50 Minutes Total Cook Time: 90 Minutes

Ready in: 110 Minutes

Yield: 8 Large or 12 Medium-Sized Burritos

Ingredients:

For Flour Tortillas:

2 Cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon Cumin

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ Cup Warm Milk

¼ Cup Salted Butter (the one you use for cooking, nothing fancy), softened at room temperature

For the Sauce:

5 cloves of garlic, minced

½ medium onion, finely chopped

3 large tomatoes, cubed

2 tablespoons tomato paste

Dried herbs: Basil and Thyme

Seasonings: Mexican Allspice such as sweet pepper, cumin, salt and pepper, and Tabasco

1 Bay leaf

For the Seafood Filling:

1 Cup White Rice (preferably long grain, but not extra long)

Seasonings for the Rice: ½ teaspoon Cumin, ¼ teaspoon powdered saffron and ¼ teaspoon Turmeric

2 Cloves of Garlic, minced

Olive oil for frying

1 Cup small shrimps, cleaned and peeled

1 tablespoon Lemon Juice

3 White Fish Fillets of your favorite kind

1 Can (440ml) Red Kidney Beans, rinsed and drained, this will make about 1& ¼ cup of beans

8 Packed Crab Sticks, each is cut crosswise to 3 pieces

Seasonings: 1 teaspoon Cumin, ½ teaspoon Mexican Allspice or sweet pepper, salt and pepper

For Serving: 1 Cup Shredded Cheese of preferred kind (optional)

Method of Preparation:

Flour Tortillas:

-        Start by mixing all the ingredients together, work with your hand until a firm ball starts to form. You want it pliable and not too greasy. Too much liquid will make the tortillas very hard so I recommend that you mix everything and keep the milk for last, then start dripping until the desired consistency.

-        Cover the ball with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 20 minutes.

-        After that, heat a shallow griddle on high. If you have two griddles, it will save you a lot of time trust me.

-        While heating the griddle, dampen a thin kitchen towel with warm water and prepare a large serving dish. This is where you will be keeping the prepared tortillas until time to use.

-        Now, grab the dough and cut into 8 to 12 balls with a sharp knife. Re-knead carefully and NOT too much just until each of the pieces is a uniform sphere.

-        Dust the work surface with flour and start flattening each ball into a 15cm tortilla in length and 4 or 5 mm in thickness. You can totally make them smaller or bigger but I strongly recommend that you don’t flatten them too thick.

-        On the very hot griddle(s), lower the heat to low-medium then lay the flattened tortilla and press with a wide slotted spoon to avoid bubbling. When just beginning to cook (15-30 seconds depending on the thickness) turn over to the other side and cook for the same amount of time.

-        I usually flatten the tortillas while cooking them, it is a bit of a multitasking but you can absolutely flatten them all, and then cook them one by one.

-        Don’t panic if they don’t turn out to be perfect circles, it takes some training to know how to cut the ball into small balls and flatten each one of them into the perfect circle. If you are a newbie, don’t despair, there are many more times to come ;)

-        A perfectly cooked tortilla should be ivory with only some golden spots and also pliable not hard.

-        Lay each prepared tortilla on the serving dish then cover with the towel. Dampen the towel after laying every 2 or 3 tortillas to make sure they stay moist.

-        When the tortillas are all cooked, wrap the dish tightly with the towel and set aside until time to use.

Tomato Sauce:

-        Over medium heat, stir-fry the minced garlic and onion in olive oil until golden and aromatic. Toss the tomato cubes and paste, cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.

-        Add ½ cup of water then the seasonings and herbs then toss the bay leaf. Cover again, lower to very low and let simmer for 20 more minutes, stirring at least 3 times to avoid sticking while cooking.

Seafood Filling:

-        Wash the rice many times until the water runs clean. On medium-heat, cook the rice in 2 cups of water and 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil and the spices. Stir until well coated, wait until the water is absorbed then lower the heat to very low and cover.

-        Let cook for 15-20 minutes or until done.

-        In a large wok or a wide saucepan, stir-fry the minced garlic in olive oil, toss the shrimps, lemon juice and fish fillets.

-        Dust with cumin and the rest of the spices then add the beans and rice.

-        Toss the crab fingers.

-        Add 3 ladles of the tomato sauce and mix all together gently. You want the filling to be consistent and not runny.  

-        Now let’s arrange the filling station. Put the filling on one side, free the area before you for filling then bring the final serving dish (preferably oven-friendly) to the other side.

-        I like my burritos stuffed and thick. So I usually spoon about 4 heaping tablespoons to every large tortilla. Leave about 5cm in front of you, add 3-4 tablespoons of fillings then roll tightly.

-        Tuck in the sides while rolling to avoid to seeping, you don’t want to lose any of the filling out of that thick delicious burrito.

-        Arrange them into a pyramid, or any other way you want to, sprinkle the cheese and broil in the oven for 5 minutes.

-        Serve with homemade guacamole or the remainder of the tomato sauce with some Doritos or any type of corn chips. Enjoy!