Masa Beyond the Tortilla: Inventive Recipes Behind the Ingredient’s Third Wave

“What makes the perfect masa?” This is the question posed at the start of the introduction to Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple, the first cookbook from Jorge Gaviria,  founder of Masienda, a purveyor of masa and masa harina for restaurants across the West and beyond. You can find tortillas made with Masienda products at star chef Enrique Olvera’s Damian in Los Angeles, Oakland’s standout Chicano heritage hotspot Bombera, and other top eateries.

Reprinted with permission from Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple by Jorge Gaviria, © 2022. Published by Chronicle Books. Photographs © Graydon Herriott

But that wasn’t always the case. Gaviria first set out to find an answer to the perfect masa question in 2014, which led him to farms throughout Oaxaca in Mexico. There he tasted rare heirloom corn grown for generations by local farmers. Their exceptional crops became the foundation for the masa now gracing the tables of some of the finest restaurants in the world. For Masa, Gaviria consulted chefs and friends to compile the book’s comprehensive chapters that serve as more than a home for simple recipes.

“The recipes are broken up into three sections,” Gaviria tells us. “The first section is really foundational recipes of masa that will also leave you without any further questions. That was really informed by my own process, conversations I’ve had, and the things I’ve learned.”

Reprinted with permission from Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple by Jorge Gaviria, © 2022. Published by Chronicle Books. Photographs © Graydon Herriott

The second section is meant to document all of the ways masa is used across the world. The third section of the book highlights modern recipes, which Gaviria explains are representative of “the third-wave movement around masa and a way to think about it without cultural confines.”

To help expand our understanding of how masa can be used in the kitchen, we excerpted a few that highlight the ingredient’s versatility. With these recipes as a blueprint to expand your use of masa at home, you can start to experiment with it in new ways. Order a bag of masa harina from masienda.com and you’re sure to taste a level of quality that will, as Gaviria says, get you “hooked for life.”

Masa Recipes

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Masa Harina Waffle

While masa may not be an expected ingredient in waffles, it adds an extra crunch and chew that is unlike that of all-purpose flour. Here, Jorge Gaviria asked pastry chef Jess Stephens (of Empellón and Onda restaurants) to develop a sweet treat you’ll be sure to revisit.

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Masa Tempura

This batter is the key to fried fish tacos at Empellón restaurant in New York City and “can be used on just about any host, from fish and shrimp to vegetables and tofu,” Gaviria explains. “[Chef] Alex Stupak’s secret to getting an even, flaky consistency from this masa batter is to run it through a cream whipper. Cream whippers work by using compressed nitrous oxide to aerate the liquid inside through a nozzle at the top. If you don’t have one of these lying around, you can get pretty close by whisking or blending the batter for a bit longer, as you might to whip cream, for 2 to 3 minutes, until smooth and even.”

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White Chocolate Chip Cookies

“I had never personally experimented much with sweet pastry items of any sort, but I knew it could be done easily with masa,” says Gaviria, who turned to Stephens for this treat as well. “After all, masa appears in not only savory applications throughout Mesoamerica but also plenty of confections, like the rosquilla cookies of Nicaragua and turuletes of southern Mexico.” 

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