Lime-cooked products tortilla chips

The rapid and exponential growth of the production and sales of lime-cooked snacks took place mainly during the last decade of the twentieth century. These snacks rapidly became popular in other areas of the world as well. Today, corn and tortilla chips are manufactured worldwide. Flat tostadas and tortilla chips are tortillas that are deep-fat fried they are widely used as snacks or vehicles for the preparation of fast foods. For their preparation, nixtamal and red-paprika peppers or annatto are stone-ground into a coarse masa. The red- or orange-colored masa is baked into a tortilla and then fried into a tostada. Tostadas are the base for the preparation of a wide array of meals. Sometimes, they are eaten as a snack with lemon juice and sauces. It is very common to consume tostadas with refried beans, cheese, shredded meats, and vegetables such as lettuce, tomato, onions, peppers, and radish. Taco shells are the American version of tostadas, the only difference being that they are usually fried bent (U form) and rarely colored. 

Dry masa flour Lime-cooked maize kernels that are coarsely ground into dough and then dehydrated and reground to meet certain particle-size specifications. The shelf-stable dry masa flour is moistened and further processed into table tortillas, com chips, tortillas chips, and other related products. 

Masa Name of the ground nixtamal or lime-cooked maize that has cohesive properties. The nixtamalized masa is the backbone for the production of table tortillas, corn chips, tortilla chips, and other traditional food items widely consumed in Mexico and other Latin American countries. 

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