Masa harina is a coarse corn-based flour used in traditional Mexican foods, made by cooking corn in an alkaline solution, soaking, rinsing, and grinding. It is gluten-free and nutritionally valuable due to the nixtamalization process. Fresh masa is preferred by some, but masa harina is widely available.
In Spanish, masa harina literally means “dough flour,” but many people use it specifically to refer to a type of coarse corn-based flour that has been subjected to the process of ninnamalization. This specially treated corn is used to make tortilla chips, tamale fillings, and a variety of other traditional Mexican foods. If you live in a region with a Mexican grocery, you can probably find masa harina there, and some larger markets carry this food item as well.
The process of making masa harina begins with cooking whole corn kernels in an alkaline solution which loosens their outer casings. The corn is soaked after cooking and then rinsed repeatedly to remove the caustic alkalis. At the end of this process, the corn is ground to create masa, a coarse slurry that can be used fresh or dried and sold as masa harina.
Some cooks find that fresh masa is superior to masa harina. If you happen to live near a tortilla factory, you might be able to get some fresh masa to test the difference for yourself. Other people think Masa Harina is perfectly adequate for making tortillas and other Mexican dishes. It can also be used somewhat like cornmeal, although it has a much finer texture than cornmeal.
Because masa harina is made from corn, it is typically gluten-free, and as a result, some gluten-intolerant cooks and bakers like to experiment with it. It definitely tastes mushy, which can cause some ingredients to clash, but it can be used in things like cookies and cakes, as well as more conventional tortillas.
It’s important to avoid confusing masa harina with cornmeal or cornmeal. Cornmeal is made by grinding corn, dry or wet, but the corn is not treated with lime first. As a result, flours and flours behave differently than masa harina in cooking and baking. They are also not as nutritionally valuable as nixtamalized masa.
The nixtamalization process was developed in Mesoamerica and is thousands of years old. In addition to softening the corn for grinding into masa, it also changes the texture of the corn, releasing nutritionally valuable niacin and adding calcium from lime used as an alkali. This process made corn an excellent nutritional addition to the diet of early Americans and explains why corn became such an important crop throughout the Americas.
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