what is 'cal' lime powder within cooking
within a reciepe it ask for 100 gramos de cal. i've translated it to mean100g of lime powder. Not sure what it's refering to??
19 Answers
Cal is what the Mexican people have throughout time used to soak the hard corn in, leaving it to simmer all night over the kitchen fire embers. This is called "nixtamal"
The women used to get up very early to take the nixtamal and grind it with stones the long cylindrical stone held in the hands is called "mano" and the platform-like stone is called "metate"
This is how nixtamal is processed to turn it into "masa"
Masa is corn dough to be cooked and toasted on a "comal" - often a comal is made from the end of a 55-gallon oil drum - in earlier times they were made of ceramic
thus the traditional Mexican tortillas have been made
These days, the Mexican women usually bring the nixtamal to the tortilleria in the morning to have it turned into masa to take home to make the tortiullas
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of cal to traditional Mexican culture
cal is calcium hydroxide or quicklime or slaked lime. It is used among other things to "nixtamalize" corn, to soften and remove the outer husk and to make some of the nutrients more bio available, the corn becomes posole/homminy and thus to good tasting tortillas and tamales.
cal is calcium hydroxide or quicklime or slaked lime. It is used among other things to "nixtamalize" corn, to soften and remove the outer husk and to make some of the nutrients more bio available, the corn becomes posole/homminy and thus to good tasting tortillas and tamales.
I went googled "receta 100 gramos de cal" and came up with lots of recipes that call for "100 gramos de cal". On one of them there was quite a discussion as to what "cal" actually means, because the (native Spanish speaking) poster didn't know. The general consensus was that it was referring to "sal". I have no idea if this might make sense to you. Since it's a corn recipe, maybe some salt in there would be OK. My other thought is just throwing some lime juice in.
Let us know what happens.
My mother was born in the 1950's in mexico and was a pueblo girl. She said they used CAL for soaking/boiling the corn to make the nixtamal which is the 'masa" for tortillas. I asked her what is CAL made from? or where does it come from? She said it came from caves in her pueblo kind of like a mining cave and people would boil it and make it into powder. I am assuming it is some kind of limestone..?
Here it is in English - this should work
Please go to Wikipedia with this link. I am from Guatemala and there are a number of ethnic Guatemalan recipes that call for "cal" other than when used to make tortillas. In most of them the use of "cal" is as a liquid mixed with water to soak vegetables before cooking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide
Some of the 'dulces tipicos' from Guatemala (like the pumpkin variety that is crystalized in chunks) uses a "lejia de cal" soak before cooking. Google: Dulce de Chilacayote.
Hope it helps you understand.
Cal is actually garden lime or slaked lime, that you can purchase in Lowes or home depot for
I know that cal is the lime (like limestone) they use to make cement. Seems to me that I've heard of soaking some food in it for some reason...
I don´t see where you all are getting the 100 grams from. The part of the recipe in question calls for a slurry made out of lime and water, one part lime for every 10 parts of water.
Here is a site i found on google that refers to lime powder. I think we have solved the mistery
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/all-natural-lime-powder-8-oz
You know how there are garlic powder and onion powder for cooking? I wonder if this would be something like "cal en polvo" or "polvos de cal". Since it's a corn dish, lime as an ingredient makes sense. I am back to the thought of throwing some lime juice in as a substitute, unless you have access to lime powder.
100 grams = about 4 ounces. that would be a lot of salt or baking soda. Now I am really curious.
The reason I would think it is baking soda comes from most of the sites I found when I goggled it. Calcium Carbonate came up many times.
Give us all the ingredients and we will have a bake off. Each person can add 100 grams de cal. Using de cal as what ever you personally think it is. Now I wonder what results we would get. 
Here is a example of "cal" in a reciepe -- I got this from WR.
"los huevos se cubren con una lechada de un tanto de cal por diez de agua" de esta manera.
The eggs are covered with a one unit of lime per 10 units of water.
