The Andes · Volume 21, Colombia, the Andean Interior
Arepa paisa
Antioquia, Colombia
Illustration
- Time
- 24 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 130 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Arepa paisa
Makes 20. The maize soaks a day.
Ingredients
The arepas
- 900g maíz trillado (hulled white maize)
- as needed water
- to taste, optional salt
To finish
- to serve butter
- to serve salt
- to serve cheese, sliced or grated
Method
- Soak the maize for a day.
- Cook it over a medium heat until soft, but not too soft.
- Drain it and grind it to a smooth dough. Knead it until it holds together, so the arepas do not crack when shaped.
- Divide it into equal balls and flatten them thin and round.
- Cook them on a preheated wire grill or metal plate, over charcoal or an electric ring, about 2 minutes, turning them so they do not burn.
- Spread them with butter, salt them, and top with cheese. Eat them hot.
Notes
The truest traditional version carries no salt or other ingredient at all.
The recipe is Sandra Patricia Romero's, for El Campesino, which allows salt or ground cheese in the dough. El Tiempo's 1995 account of the thin arepa, the tela, says the authentic one has nothing in the dough: the maize is cooked several hours, and the salt goes on after, with the butter and cheese.
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.