Tostada, or toasted, is a Mexican preparation of flatbread, meat of some kind and accompaniments - chillies, tomato, cucumber, avocado, soured cream and so on.
My toast is made from sorghum flour, a non-gluten flour from amaranth seeds; a pseudo-grain.
Sorghum is not accepted in the paleo diet or the paleo template, generally, but as we look beyond paleo into the food that is exciting, but less damaging than using wheat flour, sorghum seems pretty good. You'll need to make your own mind up on this one. As a former lifelong gastric reflux sufferer, I know a wheat flour tortilla would have me belching up nuclear heartburn within minutes - sorghum does not.
Take a half cup of sorghum flour and add in a tablespoon or so of yoghurt, soured cream or milk. Mix it together. Need more? Add more!
You're looking for a firm, but incorporated texture.
Sorghum is actually a pseudo-grain, so not a grain at all, and the flour is not at all glutenous, so you're not going to get the same texture as wheat flour dough. It will form a firm texture.
Take a golf ball sized ball (that half cup will make two) and gently flatten it. Roll it out with a rolling pin, bottle, or whatever you have to hand ... turn, roll, push the edges back in, roll, turn, tuck, roll, turn.
At about a couple of millimetres thick, take a large fish slice and scrape it off the board or work surface and pop it into a hot frying pan, turning it after a few minutes and slinging back out onto the board once cooked.
These are the tortilla.
Back to things paleo - the chilli ...
Maybe a couple of hours earlier, you get the chilli going. Take some pork mince and brown it off in a large lidded sauté pan. Sprinkle cayenne pepper, chilli powder and paprika over, some dried oregano and finally, a teaspoon or so of cocoa powder. Cocoa powder lends a real depth to the dish.
Add in a finely chopped onion and a slug of tequila. Cover with the lid and allow the steam to soften the onions for a couple of minutes.
Pour in a can of peeled plum tomatoes and mash down.
Put the lid on and simmer for a couple of hours.
When you are ready to serve up, shred some lettuce, slice some cucumber, tomato, boiled egg, pickled chillies, olives, that kind of thing - I went for boiled egg, cucumber and olives, in quantities that make up 10! That's the Mayan thing.
Lay the tortilla out of a plate, spoon over some of the pork chilli and top with cheese and soured cream. Lay the accompaniments around the sides. I also topped with soured cream and chopped pickled chillies.
Tuck in and enjoy!
