On the farm: caramelo tortillaS
A SERIES ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FARMERS, RANCHERS, FOOD PRODUCERS & MAKERS.
When Ruben Leal moved from Mexico to the United States to study at the University of Arizona, he missed the tortillas of Hermosillo, Sonora.
His hometown is a place where the streets are “lined with taco stands and tortillerias. Growing up, tacos were on every corner,” says Ruben, owner of Caramelo Tortillas in Lawrence, Kan.
Artisanal avocado oil tortillas dappled with faint brown speckles are coming off the line as Fox and Pearl’s Chef Vaughn Good and staff arrive at the new 3,000-square-foot Caramelo warehouse for a tour.
““I’m absolutely obsessed with making round tortillas, - I want them to be as perfect as possible.””
Caramelo’s tortilla-making crew gets an early start, arriving at 7 a.m. to put ingredients into the semi-automatic dough rounder, a machine that cuts and then rounds the batch of dough into balls. Two employees burnish the balls again by hand to ensure when pressed the 6-inch tortillas are perfectly round.
“I’m absolutely obsessed with making round tortillas,” Ruben adds. “I want them to be as perfect as possible.”
Another employee wearing thick cotton gloves covered with rubber gloves to protect his hands from the 500-degree heat places three balls at a time on the pressing plates of a new 8,000-pound tortilla machine. The machine was imported from Mexico following a year’s wait after supply chains slowed during the pandemic.
A steel plate presses the balls into circles, which are fed onto a glass-enclosed conveyor belt. The tortillas are par-cooked and sent up another slanted belt to be cooled and stacked by hand for packaging and distribution.
“We don’t quite cook them all the way,” Ruben explains. “They’re not raw, but when they start bubbling, we stop the cooking process, so the chef can brown them to their liking.”
Ruben began to teach himself how to make the tortillas in 2015 while working in the chemistry department at the University of Kansas. He developed his own recipe, but after returning to Hermosillo for his mother’s funeral he discovered her hand-cranked tortilla press. He brought the press back to the United States with him and began working to turn his hobby into a business, starting off in a tiny shop barely bigger than a closet.
The shop was conveniently located across the street from Hank Charcuterie, Chef Vaughn’s first restaurant. One day while on his rounds, Ruben stopped to introduce himself to his neighbor and left some tortillas to try.
“I was blown away! I had never had tortillas like that,” Chef Vaughn says. “Not that I was a flour tortilla hater, but it definitely changed my mind about what a flour tortilla could be.”
Although the majority of Mexican regional cuisine features corn, flour tortillas are the culinary rock star in Sonora.
“There has always been the flour vs. corn debate,” Ruben says. “To me, it depends on the filling. For example, carne asada pairs best with flour and cabeza (head tacos) with corn.”
Ruben initially sold his tortillas at The Merc Co+op in Lawrence, and to a few select restaurants. But after receiving accolades from Bon Appétit and Saveur100, orders exploded.
“The translucent flour tortillas melt on the tongue like a communion wafer,” according to Texas Monthly’s “A Texan’s Guide to the Kansas City Taco Scene,” which also included a review of Fox and Pearl’s beef-cheek tacos.
The tortillas also have won a cult following among up-and-coming craft barbecue restaurants, including Brix Barbecue in Fort Worth, JNL Barbecue in Austin, Smokin’ Z’s in Bayou Vista, Texas, and smók in Denver. In Kansas City, Harp Barbecue and Night Goat Barbecue feature Caramelo tortillas.
Locally, the tortillas are available at four Kansas City restaurants, which make up only 5% of sales. The rest of daily production – 7,000 a day – gets shipped to wholesale customers in all 50 states.
“We’re so maxed out right now, and I haven’t spent a dime on marketing,” Ruben says. “We have a waiting list of companies in the U.S. that want to have our tortillas.”
The word “caramelo” refers to Ruben’s favorite taco: a flour tortilla filled with carne asada, usually made from ribeye, and a melting cheese, usually Chihuahua cheese or Queso de Oaxaca.
Sonoran tortillas are made with the simplest of ingredients: flour, water, some kind of fat (usually pork) and sea salt. Caramelo’s pork fat is rendered to specification at Steve’s Meat Market in De Soto, Kan., from pigs that have been humanely raised.
The pork fat tortillas are the most popular and pair best with barbecue, but the line also includes tortillas made from duck fat or avocado oil for vegans.
The Kansas State University’s Food Science Institute ran tests and estimated the tortillas have a shelf life of five days on the kitchen counter or three weeks when refrigerated. The tortillas can also be frozen for months without a change in quality when they are thawed.
By the end of 2021 or early 2022, Ruben has plans to add corn tortillas, making them in unused space at the back space of the warehouse. Right now, he’s waiting for the machine to arrive, but he has plans for “something cool that will raise the bar.”
“Corn tortillas should be smooth, not dry and have a soft bite. Not like that cardboard stuff,” Ruben says. “You shouldn’t need a drink of water after every bite.”
For now, the future corn tortilla-making space is storage for his barbecue equipment, a Mill Scale Metalworks custom live-fire grill on wheels fabricated in Lockhart, Texas. The setup includes a custom comal big enough to cook a larger 17-inch tortilla called sobaquera, a traditional burro tortilla.
Back at the restaurant, Chef Vaughn debuts his own Mill Scale Metalworks grill at a parking lot party celebrating Fox and Pearl’s second anniversary. He uses the two-tiered grill to warm house-made sausages.
Whether ordering the guajillo beef with sauerkraut and mustard barbecue sauce or the garlic herb lamb garnished with kohlrabi slaw and jalapeño-lime vinaigrette, both are nestled in Caramelo’s thin, pork fat tortilla.
“One of the things I appreciate about Ruben is that the quality has never changed. It’s the same product no matter how much buzz he gets. Quality is his priority,” Chef Vaughn says.
The Dish: Guajillo Beef Sausage, Sauerkraut, Mustard Barbecue Sauce and Garlic Herb Lamb Sausages with Kohlrabi Slaw and Jalapeño-Lime Vinaigrette, both on Caramelo Pork Fat Tortillas