The Andes · Volume 21, Colombia, the Andean Interior
Arepa paisa
Antioquia, Colombia
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 1 hour · Waiting 8 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Arepa paisa
Overnight soaking, then about 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 1kg dried, husked maíz trillado
Method
- Soak the dried, husked maíz trillado roughly a day.
- Cook over medium heat until just tender.
- Drain and grind to a smooth masa.
- Divide the dough into equal balls and flatten by hand.
- Griddle on a dry, hot budare or pan for roughly 2 minutes a side, without added fat, until cooked through and lightly speckled.
Notes
The truest traditional version carries no salt or other ingredient at all.
What a modern chef changes
Plancha-Griddled, Hogao Alongside
Method
- Grind the cooked maíz trillado more finely and evenly in a high-power blender, without changing the recipe's own deliberate lack of salt or fat.
- Griddle the arepa on the Big Green Egg run as a plancha, its steady, even, high heat closer to the traditional wood-fired budare's real temperature than most domestic hobs reach.
- Serve alongside a small dish of hogao reduced through a chinois to a fine, glossy consistency, an accompaniment rather than a change to the arepa itself.