In general, gluten-free tortillas are one of those things that you just learn to live with, as most brands are pretty bad, so I was very surprised when we tried Mission's attempt at making a gluten-free flour tortilla and discovered they were quite good.
Although I had tried making flour tortillas from scratch a couple of times, soon after we went gluten free, I quickly realized that I just didn't have the knack for it and turned to a variety of pre-made gluten-free products instead.
That decision really didn't turn out much better.
The extra-large brown rice tortillas made by Tortilla Factory are essentially non-rollable and gritty, but they are edible if you turn them into a quesadilla or fry them into a chimichanga.
They are dry and hard, so I tried steaming them once, but that was pretty much a gooey disaster.
Tortilla Factory's gluten-free teff tortillas can actually be rolled into a burrito, if you heat them up in the microwave first. But unlike the brown rice tortillas, teff is bitter, so they don't taste very good.
We tried Udi's tortillas once, due to the rave reviews from the Celiac Support Group at the Delphi forums. They were made with white rice flour, a bit thicker than a regular tortilla, but no matter what I did to them, I couldn't get them to cook.
They were always raw, doughy, and gaggy.
Rudi's white tortillas were pretty good, though. Super thin, they were the best we had tried up to this point. Available at the local grocery in the freezer section, when we lived in San Pete county, Utah, they were light, white, and frozen for convenience.
Although, they were quite small, we were really disappointed when we moved to Salt Lake county and couldn't get them anymore.
Corn tortillas are okay, but when you're hankering for a bean-and-cheese burrito, a soft corn tortilla just isn't the same. For that reason, I was really excited when I heard that Mission had come out with a gluten-free flour tortilla.
These are NOT Mission's Giant Corn Tortillas
I first heard about these gluten-free flour tortillas from the Celiac Support Group about a few years ago.
The forum has a Product section, and someone had discovered the tortillas at their local grocery store and wanted to know if anyone else had tried them. Supposedly rice based, one participant said they were a little gummy, but her picky daughter liked them okay.
At the time, I did a quick Google search, but they were not listed at the Mission website, so I just filed it away in the back of my mind.
We ran onto some Mission tortillas at Harmon's grocery store one day, labeled gluten free. They were much whiter than your normal corn tortilla, and much larger, so we thought they were the new gluten-free tortillas.
I choked about the $8.50 price for 10, but if they were close enough to the real deal . . .
I wasn't impressed.
In fact, I was very disappointed.
They turned out to be milder than a traditional corn tortilla, large enough to roll into a very small burrito, but they still tasted like corn tortillas.
We can get the same taste for a much cheaper price by just picking up the regular-sized corn tortillas available everywhere.
Although the tortillas were a mixture of rice flour and masa, I wouldn't call them rice-based. In addition, they were not gummy. They were just a lighter, larger corn tortilla.
When going through the archives at the Celiac Support Group, I noticed the entry for Mission Gluten-Free Flour Tortillas again.
After reading the review for a second time, I realized they couldn't have been talking about the giant corn tortillas that we had tried the year before.
Once again, I did a quick Google search, and this time, I hit the jackpot. Mission did, in fact, have a gluten-free FLOUR tortilla that they called a "soft taco."
Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Ingredients
At the time that we first tried these, they were based on:
- modified food starch
- rice flour
- tapioca starch
- soybean flour
- potato starch
- cellulose, guar, and xanthan gums
In the U.S., modified food starch is almost always made from corn, rather than wheat, and since Mission is a popular U.S. company, I found the ingredients promising.
If the modified starch was wheat starch, wheat would have to be listed in either the ingredients or as an allergen statement.
Plus, according to the current gluten-free labeling law, the tortillas would also have to contain a statement that told consumers the wheat starch had been processed to remove gluten if the starch was from wheat.
Since there was no:
- dairy
- sorghum flour
- teff flour
- flaxmeal
- psyllium husks
I come from a low-carb background, so I wasn't put off by the soy flour or the review that called these tortillas slightly gummy.
While they were not certified to be gluten free back then, (today, they are), I knew that Mission has quality controls in place to help avoid cross contact with gluten.
Their corn tortillas are processed on their own dedicated line, using a fully enclosed tunnel to protect them from airborne gluten, and Mission sends them out to be tested by an independent lab every three months.
While these tortillas are not something a super-sensitive celiac could eat every single day or even several times a week, I was fairly certain they would be okay for an occasional treat.
So How Were They?
Even though hubby was surprised at how soft they were in the package, I was timid about going to all the trouble of making up four burritos if they were going to be as disgusting as Udi's were. I decided to make up one burrito, split it in half between the two of us, and then if we liked it, I would make more.
So that's what we did.
Back then, I always had shredded smoked pork in the refrigerator for hubby's lunches, so I tossed half a baggie full of that into a frying pan. I then added some chopped leftover baked potato, sliced green onion, and seasoned the mixture with a Mesquite Chipotle seasoning we get at Cabela's.
I added a little water, so the burrito filling would sort of steam in the pan as it slowly heated up.
I opened the tortillas and took a whiff. They smelled like real flour tortillas!
Following the package directions, I heated them up in a non-stick enamel-glazed skillet, for about 15 seconds per side. They actually bubbled and grew speckled like a normal flour tortilla does. I then slid the tortilla onto a paper plate.
They were thinner than Udi's brand tortillas, and actually cooked all the way through!
The tortillas rolled up beautifully, except it had been so long since I'd rolled a burrito, I forgot how we used to do it! I put too much filling inside, but that's an easy fix.
I next cut the burrito in half and served one half to hubby. Hubby took one bite and pronounced them superb.
It felt like a large load had been lifted from my shoulders as we ate dinner. It's so hard to find really, really good gluten-free foods, and hubby is always feeling like he's missing out.
The next morning, I whipped up some chorizo and eggs.
Normally, we would eat it inside corn tortillas like a soft taco, but this time, I used the gluten-free flour tortillas instead. I know it was a bit soon for me to have them again, but I wanted to give hubby something different.
The tortilla held together pretty well, except that I stored them overnight in the refrigerator, so they sort of stuck together. Where I had to pull them apart, one of the tortillas were awfully thin, so it split when I tried to roll it.
However, normal flour tortillas would have done the same thing, so I was fine with that. I just used a fork to help hold it together.
Today's Mission Brand Flour Tortillas are Certified Gluten Free
I stopped eating these for a while, due to the xanthan gum in the tortillas, but Bob's Red Mill stopped producing xanthan gum made from wheat starch, so I decided to try the tortillas again -- just in case they were sourcing their xanthan from Bob's.
I had absolutely no problem with them!
I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that they are now certified to be gluten free, up to 10 ppm. That may, or may not, have helped my response to them, as well.
This means I can have them more frequently than just an occasional treat. While they do contain cellulose gum and inulin, both of which are fibers, so far, I've been doing okay.
Where Can You Get Mission Gluten-Free Tortillas?
I took a trip to the Mission website this morning to see what they had to say about availability and noticed that these tortillas also come in a spinach-and-herb wrap variety. Since hubby loves spinach, I'm going to have to keep my eye out for those.
The website no longer says that the tortillas are limited to just the western states, and has a search bar where you can enter your zip code to see who sells these tortillas in your area.
In our area, we can get them at Kroger and a local Walmart Neighborhood grocery. They seem to be easiest to get in areas where there are a large population of gluten-free customers, but that is not always the case.
For example, they are not available at our local Super Walmart, nor the Winco that we frequent.
But I did find them at Amazon:
If you decide to try these, make sure that they say gluten free prominently on the package, as Amazon sells several different varieties of Mission tortillas.
Final Thoughts:
I don't know that I would go so far as to call these the gold standard of gluten-free tortillas, but they were pretty darn close.
Soft and bendable, they smell like real tortillas, puff up like real tortillas, and almost taste like real tortillas. If I were giving out stars, on a scale of 1 to 10, these Mission brand gluten-free flour tortillas would rate at least a 9.
They were just that good!
Comments
Post a Comment