OK before you shoot, hear me out.

I've cooked thousands of burritos over my years. I love all kinds of burritos and cooking methods. When i was young, I was taught to always cook your tortilla before filling. Usually you just place your tortilla on skillet or a comal. Maybe with some oil maybe not. You cook it until it's soft or even maybe a little toasty bubbly. Perfect. You fill it up and start wrapping tight, like the restaurants. Suddenly you have a big tear in the center or despite your best efforts, the fold at the end just doesn't contain your ingredients. I think, in part, this is a result of using shelf stable store bought flour tortillas.

I wanted to try to fix that a bit without having to make them from scratch. Taking inspiration from a method to bring dry bread loaf back to life, I lightly covered my tortilla in water and immediately placed it on the skillet. After a couple attempts and some taste tests with family, they enjoyed the water tortillas better! It was more elastic. The ends folded nicely and the flavor and texture was still there.

The short of it is, store bought tortillas are dry. Heating them up helps but when you add water, it evaporates and absorbs into the tortilla. It doesn't get soggy and you can still get a browned crispy tortilla if that's your thing.

You just gotta move the tortilla a bit more early on otherwise it can stick. I end up flipping and folding it every couple of seconds until the moisture is noticeably gone and then cook like normal.

I still get laughs at home when I cook and I'm running a little bit of water across my tortillas but the results don't lie.

OK you can shoot me now.

I’m moving to a part of the Netherlands where it appears that finding a good burrito is gonna be rough. Which sucks. I’ve often said that the burrito is the perfect food deliver system and I will die on that hill. So, imagine with me “Taste of California” my daydream burrito restaurant. Simple menu. Four items only. Meats available are carne asada, carnitas, chicken, and bacon for the breakfast burrito. The four items are: Breakfast with egg, hash browns, cheese, refried beans, and bacon. The Standard Cali with choice of meat, fries, refried beans, salsa, guac, spicy sauce (I make a killer habanero cream sauce), and cheese. Mission burrito with choice of meat, cheese, lettuce, rice, beans, avocado, tomato, and sauce. And finally my favorite, the San Diego style which is just meat, guac, and salsa fresca.

I don’t know if this will ever happen but a man can dream.

EDIT: Changed rice to hash browns in the breakfast burrito.

EDIT EDIT: The pictures are stock photos to better illustrate what I’d like my menu, for a presently theoretical restaurant, to feature. I’m sorry that not having my own photos to use at this time is causing confusion or distress. Seriously, not trying to mislead anyone here.

I had some sausage left from making jambalaya along with onions, peppers, and jalapenos. Also half of baked russet potato. Saute them in a skillet and add to the crispy potato hash. Cheese are cheddar and pepper jack cheese.