How to roll a tortilla/ burrito/ spring roll/ shawarma/ filled vine leaves

Southeast veering southwest, 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later.

Slight or moderate.

Mainly fair.

Moderate or good, occasionally poor later.

Tortillas are not only fun to make but also very practical. You can make them in the evening and have a breakfast or lunch to go, you can fill them with whatever you want and you can freeze them. Kind of instant microwavable snacks.

Providing you know how to roll them.

Please have your first practise run not with rice, chilli and lots of salsa. But make a breakfast burrito with an omelette. Nice and gentle, topped with either cucumber or avocado sticks (or tomatoes) and a little bit of mild salsa. Of course you can also be brave and grill a slice of bacon, a sausage (after grilled cut in half lengthways) and a little bit of ketchup. Or you can top it with last nights leftover chicken breast. Or smoked salmon. But please don’t forget your omelette, it is your base.

I want you to remember the following picture and the easy sequence 1,2,3,4.

First make your omelette. It will be, in the pan, round as the tortilla. Just before it is done, fold first 1, then 2, then 3 and then 4 towards the middle. You should end up with a rectangle. Let it cool.

Now to the tortilla. People make two crucial mistakes

1. The tortilla is too small

2. They fill it too much

It is better to make two, than one which falls apart.

I assume you bought a ready tortilla, probably wheat. Please go for the biggest size which is available, it should be at least the size of your dinner plate.

Before you pop the tortilla in the microwave for 30 seconds (it rolls far better when slightly warm), get your topping ready. Cut your cucumber/avocado in sticks, cut your omelette lengthways and trim the edges if necessary, get your salsa ready.

Heat the tortilla, take it out and look at the picture again. 

Fill it in the following sequence: Your omelette, toppings, salsa sprinkled lengthways over the topping. It should be roughly ¼ to the bottom, in the middle. As in the picture. Now fold 1 over it, then 2 and then 3. You are now ready to roll. The rolling process is difficult to describe, but very crucial. Please have a look at the following picture. 

Your fingers are slightly under the tuck, and you roll it forwards while pulling the contents towards you. It sounds more complicated than it is, but you need to feel the content in the palm of your hand. Hence I suggested starting with something firm, like a piece of omelette. Now roll it towards 4. Tuck, pull and roll. You feel the roll getting tighter and tighter. Ideally you will end up with the seam down.  If not, position your roll so it is down; it helps sealing. This is also how you do spring rolls, especially the great Vietnamese summer spring rolls (which have glass noodles as their base); and of course Greek filled vine leaves

If you want to take it away with you, aka office lunch or picnic, take a piece of foil and do the 1,2,3 fold, tuck and roll towards 4 thing again. Exactly how you filled the burrito. Once the roll is done, push the foil on either side of the roll slightly in. Done. It is now ready to go and can be cut in half in the office.

If you want to create a microwavable snack, be more adventurous with the filling. Maybe a bit of cheese, cooked mushrooms on top of the egg, or both. Jalapenos and grilled vegetables are fine, but they should go into the egg omelette, explained here in the section about frittata. Either in the egg before it goes into the pan, or before you fold your egg.

Dont use Salsa at that stage, you can top it once it has been reheated.

Now roll it in strong cling film, not foil, (apparently foil is fine, but I have that thing about foil and freezer) and pop it in the freezer. If you are in dire need of a snack, or have created a cool breakfast burrito and want it now hot, take it out of the freezer, get the cling film off and heat it in the microwave.

And since we all know the Scots are sensible people: Everything tastes better when deep fried.

Once you feel confident enough to go with something else, feel free to have a go at rice, beans, chilli, grated cheese, lots of salsa and guacamole. But be warned: the looser and wetter the ingredients, the less you should use.

Fun fact of the day: Do you know can you also fill your tortilla  with the leftovers from last nights Chinese takeaway?

What a great office lunch.

And if you have never filled a tortilla with leftover curry, chutney, Raita and coriander, you have not lived.

Happy rolling.

Oh, and from experience:

Use two eggs. While it might be too much (you can always use half of it for tomorrow), a single egg does not provide enough thickness for the omelette and cooks too fast. Especially if you want to sprinkle some chives, spring onions, mushrooms, grated tofu or sliced jalapenos into the omelette.

I would also like to point out that the shop bought tortillas can be shockingly high in calories. While this is not a problem if you take that into consideration, you can keep calories down by using iceberg lettuce leaves as your tortilla. But here again, not too much filling.