Corn Tortillas with blackbeans, corn and green grape salsa

Courtesy of Cuisine Magazine

CORN TORTILLAS WITH BLACK BEANS & CORN & GREEN GRAPE SALSA
MAKES 16-18 TORTILLAS / PREPARATION 40 MINUTES PLUS OVERNIGHT SOAKING / COOKING 30 MINUTES

Masa harina, the essential ingredient for corn tortillas, is becoming readily available in specialty shops and online. It's also surprisingly easy and fast to mix into a dough. You can buy tortilla presses, but if you don't have one you can roll out balls of dough with a rolling pin between plastic as per the recipe. You could of course use bought corn or flour tortillas instead.

FOR THE BEANS & CORN
1 cup dried black turtle beans, soaked overnight (or use 2 x 400g cans black beans, omitting the first cooking step)
2 bay leaves
2 onions
6 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1-2 tablespoons chopped chipotle in adobe sauce
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 cup frozen corn
½ cup fresh coriander leaves
100g feta

Drain and rinse the beans then put into a saucepan with the bay leaves, 1 onion, peeled and cut in half, and 4 garlic cloves. Cover with water, bring to the boil, remove any foam that comes to the surface and gently simmer for 1 hour or until cooked through. Drain, reserving ½ cup liquid.
Chop the remaining onion. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and fry for 10 minutes or until soft. Chop the remaining garlic cloves and add, along with the cumin seeds and chipotle, and fry for a minute. Add the tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Add the cooked beans and reserved cooking liquid (if using canned beans, just use ½ cup tap water) and frozen corn and cook for a further 5 minutes. This can be made ahead, but add the coriander leaves and crumble through the feta in the last few minutes.

FOR THE TORTILLAS
2 cups masa harina flour (I made a half batch each using blue and yellow corn masa harina)
1 teaspoon sea salt

Combine the flour and sea salt in a bowl with 1½ cups very hot tap water and bring together into a ball.  Allow to sit for 10 minutes to allow the flour to absorb the water. Test the dough - if it seems a little wet, add a tablespoon of flour, and likewise if it seems a little dry, add a little water. Roll the dough into about 8-10 balls.  
In a tortilla press, place the ball between two sheets of plastic (a cut-open sealable plastic bag is good for this), or roll out with a rolling pin between the plastic sheets. Peel off the tortilla and fry in a dry pan for a few minutes on each side. Keep warm in a clean tea towel.

GREEN GRAPE SALSA
When in season, you could use green tomatoes or tomatillos here instead, and there's also no reason why you couldn't use some green kiwifruit. While the salsa can be eaten straight away, I prefer to leave it for 30 minutes before eating to allow the flavours to develop.

½ cup green grapes, finely diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
½ green chilli, chopped
juice and zest of 1 lime
drizzle of olive oil

Combine all the ingredients, season with salt to taste and set aside for 30 minutes before using. To serve, pile some of the beans and corn into each tortilla and top with the salsa.

WINE A softly textured, lighter-style Aussie shiraz. We recommend the Taylors 80 Acres Shiraz 2015.