FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Steaming hot tamales signal the start of the holidays.<\/p>\n
The El Toro Tortilla Factory on Tulare Street and Barton in southeast Fresno can produce a warm bag of masa if you make your own.<\/p>\n
“I’ll actually put it in their hands; they’ll touch it,” says owner David Bonilla. “They’ll even turn to their husband.”<\/p>\n
Bonilla showed us how the corn is cooked for two hours.<\/p>\n
“Once it starts to peel and the skin starts to come off, that’s when you know it’s ready,” he said. “We grind it with stone, like in the 1800s. This is legitimate quality masa. You’re not going to have preservatives in it.”<\/p>\n
Corn, water and lime go into three types of masa.<\/p>\n
“We do have masa for tortillas,” Bonilla said. “You can make pupusas with it. You can make gorditas, sopes. We also have the masa preparada. This is masa for tamales. This one already has everything in it. It’s ready to spread on the leaf and put your meat inside. We also have a masa that’s for tamales unprepared. So, the unprepared one, a lot of people choose this one because they have their own recipes.”<\/p>\n
Masa also goes into a popular hot chocolate drink with milk, cinnamon and sugar<\/p>\n
“We’ll actually use the masa that’s used for the tortillas, which goes into the champurrado,” Bonilla said.<\/p>\n
El Toro’s the kind of place where you can watch every step of the food-making process.<\/p>\n
If you’re not wrapping your own tamales, you can always order them.<\/p>\n
“We have beef, we have chicken, pork, sweet corn and jalapeno with cheese,” Bonilla said.<\/p>\n
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