nixtamal
9.5
Corn soaked and cooked in lime water to make tortillas
- noun
- /nɪkˈstɑːməl/
- Specialized
:
nixtamal
- After cooking the nixtamal, they ground it into a dough to create tamales.
Examples
-
The chef prepared a traditional dish using nixtamal as the base for his homemade tortillas.
-
He seemed fascinated as they spread this nixtamal paste around ground meat, then covered it with a corn husk and placed it in hot coals.
Fiction book (1995) -
To make tortillas, they used nixtamal, which is corn soaked in a special alkaline solution.
Synonyms
2
8.7
Corn kernels with their outer layer removed and used in cooking, often for porridge or tortillas
is alkali-treated corn used mainly to make tortillas and other Latin American foods
1
8.2
Corn kernels changed by a long cooking process used in Mexican stew
is alkali-treated corn used mainly to make tortillas and other Latin American foods
How Processed
Surface Forms
Etymology
Nixtamal comes from the Nahuatl word nixtamalli, made from nextli 'ash' and tamalli 'dough', as in the familiar word tamale. So nixtamal is corn that has been soaked and cooked in ash or lime to make a soft, flavorful dough for tortillas.